Browns, Padres fans can connect

The face of the Cleveland Browns has a loose left shoulder. Torn cartilage ails him. He throws with his right hand, allowing him to stay on the field. But it’s dicey. Sometimes, the bone pops out of the socket. This equates to screaming pain, making the quarterback more relatable to Browns fans.

The Browns, after years of futility, reached the playoffs last season and even won a game there. This year, when the Browns fielded their most talented team in not just years, but decades, giddiness overtook many fans.

Named after Paul Brown, their first head coach, the Browns attire themselves in brown-trimmed uniforms. No one else wears brown, not in the NFL.

Does this all sound familiar yet?

Yes, the Browns are the NFL version of the 2021 Padres. Cuidado, Cleveland!

Substitute Baker Mayfield for Fernando Tatis Jr., right down to their roles as corporate pitch men whose commercials air on national telecasts. (Tatis, sure, is the better ballplayer. As actors, the nod goes to Mayfield.)

Tatis pushed through the baseball season despite a labral-cartilage tear in his left shoulder. The joint’s laxity was an issue for several years, but flared up last March when Tatis made an unwise headfirst slide — on an uncontested play — and banged the shoulder. Painful detours marred his season. He still did amazing things, such as clouting a baseball out of Dodger Stadium.

Mayfield felt his left shoulder pop in this season’s second game. He had tried to tackle a Texans safety who had intercepted an errant pass a rookie receiver had sold short.

As safety Justin Reid ran at him full speed, Mayfield decided to try to ram him straight on.

Bad idea.

Reid trucked him. Mayfield, favoring his left arm, was taken to the locker room.

Though he has remained in Cleveland’s lineup, the injury is a problem. As any San Diegan would tell him, a surgical repair ultimately may be needed.

Nothing wrong with the right arm. Sunday, Mayfield

chucked the football 66.4 yards — the longest regular or postseason air-distance completion of the NFL Next Gen Stats era, per ESPN, since 2017.

But in what the Browns (3-3) hope doesn’t portend another lost season, the damaged left shoulder has coincided with uneven performances from Mayfield and may have influenced his rough showing in the 37-14 loss Sunday to the impressive Arizona Cardinals (6-0).

“I mean, it dislocated again and then slipped out again on a noncontact play, so just got to figure out a way to get better,” said Mayfield, who was asked if he plans to play Thursday night against Denver.

“Absolutely,” he said.

What would a Browns game be without exceptionally weird stuff happening?

Sunday in Cleveland, the football was fumbled on six occasions. Fumble recoveries generally skew at roughly a 50-50 split between teams across a season. In all six instances Sunday, the Cardinals recovered the football.

In other words, ghosts of the 1987 AFC Championship Game loss at Denver — in which the Browns recovered not one of the contest’s five fumbles — resurfaced near Lake Erie. Coach of those Browns was Marty Schottenheimer, who saw another Super Bowl bid evaporate 19 years later — before dazed San Diegans in Mission Valley — when Marlon McCree fumbled the football to the New England Patriots, seconds after picking off Tom Brady’s errant pass.

The ’21 Browns have resembled the ’21 Padres by starting out fast, going 3-1, and then slowing down, losing their past two games.

For them to avoid the Padres’ outcome — falling short of the playoffs, finishing with a losing record — it will take overcoming a recent barrage of injuries that likely will sideline running backs Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt (calf ) this week. In addition, rookie linebacker Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah (high ankle sprain), whose rare speed for the role showed up in the 14-7, Week 4 victory at Minnesota, is unlikely to return this week from Sunday’s injury.

Behind Mayfield is veteran Case Keenum.

Neither is as capable as AFC Central rivals Lamar Jackson (Ravens) and Joe Burrow (Bengals).

A year after his emphasis on play-action passes and tendencybreaking rollouts to the left benefited Mayfield, Browns secondyear coach Kevin Stefanski may have to dig deeper for solutions. Stefanski, a former offensive assistant with the Minnesota Vikings, was hired after strong endorsement from Browns executive Paul DePodesta, who was part of a Padres front office headed by Sandy Alderson and Kevin Towers.

Three things

Best play by Baltimore’s Jackson in Sunday’s 34-6 victory? Instead of slamming into Chargers LB Kyzir White, the Ravens QB settled for redirecting him. Instead of channeling his anger into a hit, Jackson ran closely past the charging 216-pounder. Jackson had thrown perhaps his worst pass of the year, directly to White. The two appeared likely to converge at sprint speed. A collision would’ve exposed Jackson’s right shoulder. The Ravens (5-1) are grateful Jackson — who as a freshman started at running back against Auburn — showed emotional discipline. In the same game, White got away with diving into the back of Jackson’s legs out of bounds, an unflagged blow that recalled John Harbaugh’s

assertions that officials aren’t adequately protecting Jackson.

Nor v Turner isn’t quick to dismiss NFL greatness, even if recent results suggest it is receding toward very goodness. “I’m a big

(Bill) Belichick fan, and I still think he’s got to be the best guy in the league,” Turner said Sunday in San Diego, while appearing on a video with former Chargers physician Dr.

David Chao’s “Pro Fooball Doc” show. Turner was asked to name the NFL’s best active coach. He said several young coaches are impressive. Under Turner, their coach from 2007-2012, the Chargers went 1-4 against Belichick’s Patriots. The victory, a 30-10 decision in 2008, came in a Sunday night contest that featured Philip Rivers TD passes to Antonio Gates, Malcom Floyd and Vincent Jackson. The Chargers, favored by six points, sacked Matt Cassel four times.

If former Super Bowl winner and recently resigned Raiders coach Jon Gruden had not been under contract after A.J. Smith fired Schottenheimer, or if Smith had been allowed to select Turner’s replacement instead of being dismissed, it would’ve been unsurprising to see Gruden become head coach of San Diego in either February 2007 — when Smith hired Turner — or January 2013 when Dean Spanos opted for Mike McCoy. Smith was very tight with Gruden, according to a person close to Smith. A close friend of Smith’s, longtime NFL executive Bruce Allen — a recipient of several Gruden inflammatory emails that led to Gruden’s leaving last week — was Gruden’s boss with Tampa Bay between 2004-08. When Allen was a top executive with Washington, Gruden’s brother, Jay, became the team’s coach and both Smith and his son, Kyle, joined the franchise, the former as a consultant.