Monday leftovers

One of these days, Kevin Stefanski is going to wake up and realize that for the last eight weeks he has been derelict in his duty as head coach of the Browns, futilely failing to unearth solutions to stop a slide that has snowballed to the point of near elimination from the postseason. 

The Browns, thought highly enough at the beginning of the season to engender conversation of the club's first-ever Super Bowl appearance, are 3-5 in those games and looked bad in two of those victories. The team that never lost back-to-back games in the 2020 season, haven't won two straight since stringing together three victories in weeks 2-4.

Technically, they are still alive, but in all honesty, they've been trending downward with nothing out there to give rise to any hope. The offense is stale, looking nothing like the scary unit of 2020 that overcame personnel issues on the defense to win scorefests.

The roles have been reversed. Now, it's the revamped defense that has come to the rescue of Stefanski's dull offense. In the last six games, the defense has permitted just 71 points in five of them, the 45-7 New England romp the only outlier. The offense, meanwhile, has scored just 57 points in five of those games, the 41-16 victory in Cincinnati the lone outlier.

The two units are clearly headed in different directions with no apparent solution in sight for the offense. And that is where Stefanski's dereliction enters the picture. He is the main man for that side of the football. He is being very protective of his role as the chief architect and playcaller to the point of being stubborn in the face of failure.

Last season's coach of the year in the National Football League is being humbled by the performance of his team and there seems to be nothing he can do about it. He seemingly refuses to believe his badly injured quarterback is all right.

"Baker (Mayfield) is throwing the ball well in practice," he reported last week leading up to the Sunday night game in Baltimore. Well, he sure didn't look good throwing it during the game and the two prior to that. He has completed an embarrassing 50.6% of his passes in that span.

Teams are starting to stack the box against Mayfield, which takes away the team's biggest weapon, the ground game. Stefanski basically conceded that aspect of the offense, dialing up Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt just 15 times against the Ravens. A terrible decision and not just in hindsight. Thought so at the time. But what do I know?

The Ravens simply dared Mayfield to throw, fully aware he had a busted, harnessed non-throwing arm that prevented him from making a smooth and accurate delivery, which lately has caused him to often miss open receivers badly. In 55 snaps, Mayfield dropped back 40 times. That's not Kevin Stefanski football.

When you've got ball carriers like Chubb and Hunt and an offensive line that run blocks much better than it protects the quarterback, you ride them as hard and often as possible no matter how many men are in the box. Caving minimizes your strength and maximizes your weakness, which is exactly what the Ravens hoped he'd do. And it worked,

The NFL being a copycat league, look for more teams to follow suit the rest of the season. Unless Stefanski comes to his senses and changes his mind with regard to the ground game, it will be only a matter of time before Mayfield winds up on injured reserve for the rest of the season.

Come to think of it, that's what should happen and the sooner, the better. Like the moment the Browns are officially eliminated from the postseason. No sense in playing him in meaningless games. Gives him that much more time to be ready for training camp next summer.

Maybe by then, Stefanski will have come to the conclusion he would be a better HEAD coach if he ceded control of the offense to coordinator Alex Van Pelt. Based on his stubbornness by sticking with Mayfield, that probably won't happen.

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Remember when the wide receivers corps was considered a team strength at the beginning of the season? Not anymore. Mayfield has connected on scoring passes to wideouts only four times this season, three to Donovan Peoples-Jones.

Odell Beckham Jr. talked his way out of Cleveland in mid-season and Jarvis Landry, who busted out with an 111-yard game Sunday night, has yet to reach the end zone on the scoring end of a pass. Rookie Anthony Schwartz can't stay healthy. Rashard Higgins is the forgotten and abandoned Brown. And Ja'Marcus Bradley was just elevated from the practice squad.

Peoples-Jones, who came on strong toward the end of his rookie season, has missed three games with injuries. Mayfield targeted him five times against the Ravens, completing two for 10 yards. DPJ's drop of a perfect pass at the Baltimore 11 on the first possession of the game blunted an opportunity to score and was a precursor of what was to come.

Higgins is the biggest mystery. He and Mayfield reportedly have a symbiotic football relationship, but it sure hasn't shown this season, He has only 15 catches and one score after booking 37 and four touchdowns last season. He was a healthy scratch Sunday night.

Asked why after the game, Stefanski explained, "I just felt that was the plan going into this week. That changes weekly. There are so many things to consider in terms of what our game plan looks like, special teams, etc." That's it. Not surprisingly, there was no followup.

It was, knowingly or unknowingly, one of the best non-answers I've heard in a long time. Feel free to translate.

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Discipline notes . . . Remember what Stefanski said recently about fixing all the pre-snap penalty problems? "We will" fix them, he declared. No you won't, I said. He didn't. Four more against the Ravens. . . . Then there was a problem with having 12 men on the field more than once in the first quarter. It cost them a timeout. To make matters worse, they were flagged again for 12 men out of the timeout. "Put that right on me," Stefanski said, covering for special teams boss Mike Priefer. 

Stefanski was correct in taking the blame. That's what a good head coach should do because you know where the buck stops. So does he and if this isn't a sign things are slowly starting to fall apart on the coaching level, nothing will.

We're a dozen games into the season and very little has been "fixed" or "corrected" with little indication it will be taken care of by the Jan. 9 season finale. 

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More Stefanski after the game: "I think there are definitely things we are doing OK. There are things we've got to improve, I think it's a bunch of different areas we have to get better." A reminder: We're 12 games into a 17-game season, for crying out loud. Taking this long to "get better" is why the Browns are 6-6. 

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Finally . . . The last time the Browns ran for fewer yards than the 40 they posted Sunday night was the nine-carry, 31-yard effort by Chubb at Houston in a 29-13 loss on Dcc. 2, 2018. . . . Mayfield has been sacked in every one of his 11 starts, totaling 29. . . . Landry's six-catch, 111-yard game was easily his best of the season. . . . The Cleveland offense converted Lamar Jackson's four interceptions into a robust three points. And that one was tainted, Chase McLaughlin's 46-yard field-goal attempt banking off the left upright and in, halving the first-half deficit to 6-3. . . . Fullback Andy Janovich was absent from the snap count sheet against the Ravens. Why is he still on the roster? He was literally useless Sunday night. (Apologies to Janovich for this misinformation. He was a healthy scratch for the game. That's why his name did not appear on the snap count sheet.)