Mayfield outduels Burrow as Browns hold off Bengals
Baker Mayfield threw two touchdown passes, Nick Chubb ran for two scores and 124 yards and the Browns gave coach Kevin Stefanski his first NFL victory Thursday night by beating the Bengals 35-30 in Cleveland on the NFL’s 100th birthday.
Mayfield connected with Odell Beckham Jr. on a 43-yard scoring pass in the first half, and the Browns (1-1) rebounded from an atrocious performance last week in Baltimore.
Things went much more smoothly against the Bengals (0-2) and No. 1 overall pick Joe Burrow, who threw three TD passes and showed incredible poise in just his second game.
Burrow’s third TD pass — a 9-yarder to Tyler Boyd with 43 seconds left — pulled the Bengals within five, but the Browns recovered the ensuing onside kick and ran out the clock.
Mayfield made it a priority to get the ball early to Beckham, who had only three catches for 22 yards in the opener. Beckham finished with four catches for 74 yards.
Mayfield completed 16 of 23 passes for 219 yards and one interception.
Kareem Hunt had a TD catch, ran for a score and rushed for 86 yards for Cleveland.
Burrow finished 37-for-61 for 316 yards. He was sacked three times, and had an unfortunate moment when he tried to call timeout and had the ball snapped past him.
Bengals tight end C.J. Uzomah was carted off the field with a right Achilles injury after catching a pass from Burrow with a little more than eight minutes left in the game.
There were 6,000 fans inside 68,000-seat FirstEnergy Stadium.