Browns: 3 good and 3 bad against the Chiefs in Week 1

Good

Baker Mayfield

Yeah, Baker Mayfield didn’t throw a touchdown and threw a last-second pick. If you only care about fantasy football stats (the worst thing to happen to football), then yeah, Mayfield sucked today. To everyone else paying attention, however, Mayfield played beautifully. He made hard passes, he spread the ball around, he made smart decisions. He was nearly perfect. He had two or three drops, threw the ball away a time or two as well, and only really missed with two or three passes that were hard throws to make. Each of those misses, however, were thrown over the defense to ensure they weren’t picked off. Plus, there was a late-game pass to Anthony Schwartz that would’ve been a touchdown had he not broken his route. Mayfield had a wonderful day.

The Offensive line

Yeah, Chris Hubbard seems to not be the same guy he was in 2020, at least today. That was obvious, but the line still played well regardless. There were giant holes so big that Trent Richardson could’ve found them (just kidding, no he couldn’t), and Mayfield was only sacked twice. All in all a pretty good day for the team.

The play calling

Kevin Stefanski’s offense is a machine. Sure, they struggled in the second half, especially after the Nick Chubb fumble but they were still executing. We talked about how the team needed to be perfect offensively to win this game and that was nearly the case. He dialed up some great plays for Anthony Schwartz and Jarvis Landry, both of whom looked very good this week. That said, Schwartz also proved that he has some work to do, dropping an easy catch that would’ve given the team a first-down and given the Browns another chance.