The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Mayfield’s fingerprints on failed season, too
Quarterback’s mediocre play this season can’t be dismissed as sophomore jinx
The Haslams must leave a decision about the Browns’ future to Dorsey: Is there reason to worry about Mayfield?
The most important question Jimmy and Dee Haslam and John Dorsey must answer is not whether Freddie Kitchens should get another season as head coach of the Browns.
The Haslams in seven seasons as Browns owners know full well there will be a plethora of candidates to choose from if they do fire Kitchens after one season. And if they do make a coaching change and the new guy doesn’t work out, the history of the Haslams shows he’ll be gone quickly, too, and then there
will be another large coaching pool to select from.
No, settling on a coach is not the most pressing question for the Browns. The Haslams must leave the most important decision about the Browns’ future to Dorsey, their trusted general manager: Is there reason to worry about Baker Mayfield?
What if 2018 was a mirage and the Mayfield we’ve watched this season is the authentic version of the player Dorsey took with the first pick of the 2018 draft?
Giving up on a coach after one season is easy. Pay the man and pick somebody else to say, “Our mission is to win the Super Bowl,” as if no one else has been bold enough to reach for such a lofty goal.
No matter what decision is made on Kitchens, the Browns are not giving up on Mayfield after one bad season. Nor should they. But Mayfield has regressed too far this season to shrug it off as just a sophomore jinx.
Mayfield has gone from waking up “feeling dangerous” on the morning of Nov. 11, 2018, when he threw three touchdown passes in a 28-16 win over the Falcons to being just another quarterback in the NFL. Mediocre is being generous.
Whether Mayfield proves to be the success he was last
season when he finished second to Saquon Barkley in Rookie of the Year voting or looks lost again in 2020 like he does this year, he will be the pick that defines Dorsey as Browns general manager more so than the pick of Kitchens as head coach.
The end of the first half against the Ravens illustrates what has gone wrong all season. Kitchens gets criticized for calling three straight passes because each one was incomplete, resulting in the Ravens getting the ball back with 55 seconds left in the second quarter and scoring a touchdown to take a 14-6 halftime lead. Mayfield deserves some blame for not completing at least one pass. He deserves more scrutiny for failures this season than he has received.
To say “Defenses have adjusted and know how to defend Mayfield” is too simple an explanation of what has been off-kilter for the 2017 Heisman Trophy winner. Other theories abound: • He got married over the summer and is distracted.
• He spent too much time in the offseason making
commercials.
• His 2018 success went to his head.
• The passion he showed last season is gone because he has nothing to prove.
• He has put on weight around the middle.
• The coaching staff from last year was better for Mayfield than the one Kitchens put together this season.
• The current offensive scheme doesn’t fit Mayfield’s strengths.
• Mayfield holds the ball too long.
• As head coach, Kitchens can’t spend as much time with Mayfield as he did last year.
• Mayfield isn’t confident his offensive line will hold up.
• He tries too hard to get the ball to Odell Beckham Jr.
• He doesn’t look for Beckham enough.
The problem could be all these things or some of them. They change week to week, like a leak that bursts after one leak is plugged.
Mayfield has thrown 18 interceptions. Only Jameis Winston of Tampa Bay has
thrown more (28), but Winston also has 31 touchdown passes compared to Mayfield’s 19.
Mayfield led an 82yard, 10-play drive and finished it off with a sevenyard pass to Rashard Higgins with 1:45 remaining to beat the Bills, 19-16, on Nov. 10. But he failed in crunch time with a chance to tie or win the game against the Rams, Seahawks, Broncos and the game with the Steelers in Pittsburgh.
Mayfield ranks 34th in fourth-quarter passing (five touchdown passes, eight interceptions) and 24th in third-down passing.
If the solution to Mayfield’s woes were simple they would have been fixed by now. The fact they haven’t been fixed means what to do about Freddie Kitchens might not be the biggest problem the Browns face going forward.