Pressure now on Mayfield

Now that the final  chapter of the Odell Beckham Jr. Saga soap opera has been written and on the verge of being completed, time to move on. No sense dragging this unpleasantness any further.

For all practical purposes, Beckham is gone. Where he lands . . . who cares? No matter what he does wherever he lands, his 32-month tour with the Browns will be looked upon for what it was: A disaster of enormous proportions.

Fingers of blame will be pointed at him by those who never bought into the notion he would be the final building block for the Browns en route to the postseason. Those who take his side will direct their digits of blame at the quarterback who failed to connect with him and hastened his departure.

Starting Sunday in Cincinnati, and for the eight games (should he last that long) that follow, the pressure of reviving an offense that has stagnated, for the most part, since the early stages of the season will be on Baker Mayfield to produce.

The latest brouhaha that triggered Beckham's exodus thrusts Mayfield into a spotlight that most likely will shine brightly and determine once and for all who makes him most effective. Now that OBJ is history in Cleveland, time to find out whether he is a better quarterback without him.

Deep dives into their 28-game professional relationship prove that the two landing on the same page was not working and was never going to. No matter what Freddie Kitchens and Kevin Stefanski tried, it just did not work. 

It was most noticeable last season after a torn ACL ended Beckham's season in game seven against the Bengals. Mayfield was a completely different quarterback after that, successfully connecting with as many as nine or ten different receivers a game, masterminding an explosive offense that propelled the Browns into the playoffs for the first time since 2002. 

That dangerous attack carried over into this season, the Browns coming within five minutes of knocking off the Kanas City Chiefs on the road in the season opener as Beckham began the season on injured reserve. 

When he returned for game three, the disconnect was noticeable again, the duo connecting on just 50% of their passes in five games. The last straw arrived last Sunday at home in the loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. 

One successful target -- a second target was wiped out by a roughing-the-passer call against the Steelers -- gained just six yards on a screen pass. That was it. And that's when the you know what hit the you know what.

It has had a deleterious effect on the team this week. Beckham has a reputation of being popular in the clubhouse. His all of a sudden not being a part of the team might confuse those particularly close to him. "It's part of the business" might not be a sufficient enough reason to fully understand why this was happening.

Beckham failing to respond in any fashion when his father posted a damning 11-minute video on Instagram early this week disparaging Mayfield set the stage for what eventuated. Conspiracy theorists -- and no, I am not one -- concluded it was all staged by the wide receiver.

How this all affects the team Sunday is the X factor. Stefanski's biggest task now as head coach is making certain the events of the last several days do not fracture his team, splitting the locker room. To that end, he approaches Sunday's game rather melodramatically, his team having lost three of the last four games.

"We're four and four," he said the other day. "We have to get a win. Our lives depend on it is the way we look at it. We're desperate and that is where our focus is."

There are those who believe this distraction won't harm the winning culture Stefanski and General Manager Andrew Berry have developed and nurtured the last season and a half. Call the Beckham exit addition by subtraction and move on.

Then there are those who saw what unfolded this week, remember vividly what transpired for most of the last two decades with this franchise and lament, "Here we go again." The next nine games will determine which group is correct.