Browns: Cleveland secures 10 win season in a Baker Mayfield led win

Baker Mayfield led the Cleveland Browns to their second 10-win season since 1999, while defeating the New York Giants 20-6.

The Cleveland Browns have found themselves right where no one expected them to be after Week 1, and that’s a team with 10 whole wins. The Browns secured their win with a sweep of the NFC East, by defeating the New York Giants 20-6 in a game that saw the Browns rely heavily on Baker Mayfield.

Mayfield delivered in a big way, completing 84% of his passes on the night while throwing for 297 yards and two touchdowns against a game Giants defense. Mayfield now has 3,082 yards on the year, with 25 touchdowns and still only eight interceptions. Mayfield now has completed 64% of his passes on the year.

The Browns needed every yard Mayfield could muster, as the Browns running game was shut down hard by the Giants front four nearly all night. The Browns average 156 yards per game coming into their meeting with the Giants, with an average yards-per-carry of 4.9. Against the Giants, however, the Browns only mustered 106 total yards on 30 carries, for 3.6 yards-per-carry. Part of that had to do with Wyatt Teller missing the game and then Chris Hubbard going down early in the first quarter. Rookie Nick Harris attempted to replace Hubbard, but he was matched up for most of the night against Dexter Lawerence, an All-Pro caliber player, who feasted all day. Lawerence had six tackles, a sack, a tackle for a loss, a pass deflection, and a QB hit. Most of those were made against Harris.

Harris’s play clearly led to the Browns being unable to run the ball like they used to, opting to rush to the left more often than any game prior, which wasn’t as effective as the team would hope. Hubbard and Teller’s loss was notable against the rushing defense of the Giants, who in their defense, may have given Teller fits all day too.

As for the Browns defense, they didn’t make any real play throughout the game and instead just watched as the Giants’ tepid offense failed to make any real progress throughout the game; outside of a surprise first-quarter drive.

The offense was able to grind down the clock with mostly smart play calling throughout the game, leaving the defense plenty of time to rest and rotate in players as needed. Clock management was an issue against the Ravens and was partly why the Browns lost their match up against them. So it’s good to see Stefanski using his offense effectively.

The Browns have a much easier task next week, as the team stays in New York to face off with the Jets, who have one-whole-win on the season.