Browns’ Jackson: Receiver help needed after clunker
Striving to CLEVELAND — pick up where they left off in the 1980s, the Browns needed only to reprise more recent history to really get this party started.
Quick flashback to the first half of the 2010 season: With a rookie quarterback (Colt McCoy) throwing to an insufficient wide receiver corps (Mo Massaquoi, Chansi Stuckey, Brian Robiskie), the underdogs walloped the mighty New England Patriots 34-10.
Flash forward to Sunday. With a rookie quarterback and an insufficient wide receiver group, the task was to beat not a great team, but a good one. The result was a 38-14 clunker.
In order to hang with spry Philip Rivers, Baker Mayfield needed to make a little music with a group less daunting than even that Chansi Stuckey band.
Instead, Mayfield had his worst game as a pro in consort with rookies Antonio Callaway and Damion Ratley in support of Jarvis Landry.
Mayfield came away calling Landry “the best receiver in the league.” That’s a stretch. Callaway and Ratley’s pro credentials fit in a Dixie cup. That’s not a stretch.
“A bunch of times today,” Mayfield said, “they doubled up on Jarvis and keyed on him.”
The passing game was a half beat off all afternoon, partly because men weren’t open, partly because the Chargers’ Gus Bradley did what elite defensive coordinators do to rookie quarterbacks.
The No. 1 overall pick’s worst pass as a pro came on the Browns’ first play of the second half. He scrambled left, threw across his body toward Landry, and got way too little on the ball. Cornerback Desmond King, a fifthround pick in 2017, made an easy interception.
Landry was targeted nine times but caught just two passes for 11 yards.
“I left (the interception) behind him,” Mayfield said. “The others ... I have to be more accurate.”
Landry would make a fine No. 2 receiver on any team with a strong No. 1, and Callaway is a rookie with talent worth developing. Against the Chargers, they were the No. 1 and No. 2 wide receiver in a game of toxic dominoes.
With Corey Coleman and Josh Gordon gone, and with Rashard “Hollywood” Higgins and Derrick Willies injured, rookie fourth-round pick Callaway and rookie sixth-round pick Ratley were what Bradley was “giving” the Browns.
Ratley made six mostly harmless catches for 82 yards. Callaway (nine targets, two catches) was invisible. Afterward, someone asked Browns coach Hue Jackson if the team needs help at receiver.
“We do,” Jackson said. At halftime, Mayfield had thrown to Landry and Callaway a combined 15 times. The results: Three completions, 20 yards.
On his first series, Mayfield held the ball a long time searching for targets he couldn’t find. Early on, Landry ran a quick comeback and was open for a split second, but he was covered by the time Mayfield saw him.
On a play that could have produced a 40-yard touchdown, Callaway took his eye off the ball to gauge the cornerback, then failed to adjust to the ball.
“I should’ve had that,” Callaway said. “I should’ve dove.”
The Chargers’ lead was just 7-0 when the Browns tried to spring Ratley deep on a flea flicker. Ratley said he should have tracked down a throw that seemed high.
“We each have to play the next play,” Mayfield said of the missed big plays. “During the game, that is what you tell them. When we talk about it now, we have to have those.”
Mayfield was having a hard time finding open men early in reads. He was sacked on consecutive plays on which he held the ball too long. Then, on third-and-16, he spotted Callaway open in front of the Browns’ bench but fired too high. The pattern persisted.
“We were kind of sluggish,” Callaway said, putting it kindly.