Mayfield’s red zone woes sinking Browns

Freddie Kitchens’ news conferences a day after the Browns lose could be played on a loop, and no one would know for sure which game he is rehashing.

Kitchens said virtually the same thing on a conference call Oct. 8 after the embarrassing 31-3 pounding in San Francisco that he did the day after the Browns (2-3) lost the opener to the Titans, 43-13.

“We’ll learn from this,” Kitchens said. “We didn’t do enough things to have success. We didn’t coach well enough. We didn’t play well enough, and we didn’t execute.”

And, of course, as Kitchens said after losing to the Titans and again after losing to the Rams: “We’re not panicking. We’re going to line up and play the next game. There are 11 more.”

Still, the words sound different after five games than they do after one game. And for the fourth time this season, Kitchens was questioned about the offensive line and quarterback Baker Mayfield.

Mayfield has completed just six of 24 passes in the red zone, where he has thrown three touchdown passes and two interceptions. His 25 percent completion percentage inside the 20 is the worst in the league and a totally unexpected decline from his rookie year when he completed 35 of 54 passes (64.81 percent) with 20 touchdown passes and zero interceptions.

Theories on what is plaguing Mayfield abound:

• Injuries to tight end David Njoku and wide receiver Rashard Higgins

• Defenses had an offseason

to find his weakness

• Kitchens isn’t calling the right plays as head coach like he did when he was offensive coordinator for the final eight games last season

• Mayfield is holding the ball too long

• He’s trying to force the ball to Odell Beckham Jr.

• The offensive line is a mess, and that has led to Mayfield holding the ball or leaving the pocket before he has to and then getting sacked.

He has already been sacked 16 times in 2019. He was sacked only five times in the final eight games last year.

“I think there’s a lot that goes into that whenever you start talking about that,” Kitchens said. “Some of it

has to do with the lack of protection. Some if it had to do with a couple bad throws, a couple bad decisions.

“Overall, we had some drops (in San Francisco). You can’t do those things and play the quarterback position at an elite level. If you just want the honest answer, you have to have consistency around you, you have to be consistent yourself, and none of that happened last night.”

Joe Thomas is not coming out of retirement to replace Greg Robinson at left tackle. Kevin Zeitler is a Giant and unavailable to play right guard. Chris Hubbard is the right tackle, and no one on the current roster is going to replace him.

The NFL trading deadline

is Oct. 29. Trent Williams, the holdout left tackle for the Redskins, is available, but no team is going to give up a starting left tackle unless Browns general manager John Dorsey is willing to overpay with draft picks and players.

“I don’t make those decisions,” Kitchens said. “John makes those decisions, and that’s something that you should probably ask him.

“My job is to get the guys that we have to play good. I think everybody can do a better job of doing their job and then let everything lay where it lays. We just need to take the guys that we have, play better, coach better and get different results than we got last night.”

Kitchens has that explanation down pat.