Browns: Cleveland is in trouble if Thursday night the best Case Keenum can be

The Browns may be in trouble if Case Keenum doesn’t play better

Let me say to start things off so you understand how bad Case Keenum actually was the last night. The Browns averaged more yards per rush than did per pass. Keenum literally got outgained by D’Ernest Johnson. The Browns were better off trying to rush the ball in third and long than they were trying to pass.

Yet, people like Jensen Lewis declared “Keenum is our man!” For the Browns postseason’s hopes, you better hope not. In Keenum’s first start with the Browns, he completed 63% of his passes for 199 yards, and one touchdown. The Browns as a team scored just 17 points. They were averaging 26 points per game before last night. Now it’s 24.7. Considering they give up 23.6 points per game, with one average going down and the other going up, this is a problem.

Luckily, the Browns faced the 2nd best team in the NFL in opposing points per game at just 18.1 on Thursday. So there’s hope that Keenum can manage a few more games to victory, but, maybe not. The Browns were luckier than good last night in a lot of areas and had the Broncos’ offense been competent, the Browns likely would’ve lost.

Case Keenum and The Browns can’t survive on 17 points the rest of the year

For the rest of the season, the schedule just gets harder as the Browns have the Steelers twice (12th), The Bengals twice (5th), The Ravens twice (7th), the Packers (13th), and all of them are in the top 13 in the league for the fewest points given up this season. The Raiders (17th) and Lions (25th) are the only two teams that aren’t in the top half of the league.

The worst part, The Ravens, Bengals, and Packers are also in the top half of the league in points scored. So assuming Keenum plays as well in those games as he did in the upcoming games (barring Baker Mayfield not returning), the Browns will be lucky to win eight or nine games. They clearly don’t have the power to beat the Ravens right now, and the Bengals should be considered favorites at the moment.

If not for D’Ernest Johnson last night, the Browns would’ve lost. Keenum wasn’t making plays and was making throws mostly to underneath guys all day. Good enough to pad the completion percentage but it made no discernible impact. Mayfield averages nearly three yards more per pass than Keenum, and that clearly matters as the Browns went from scoring nearly 30 points per game in his starts to just 17 without him.

There isn’t a viable defense for it either. You can’t claim “well he needs more time” because he’s been in this system for three years. How much more time does he need? You can’t fall back on the idea that he needs more game reps and then he’ll play well because he’s being paid $6 million per season because he doesn’t need “game reps” to be ready. He himself said this is what he does.

You can cite that the Browns don’t have Nick Chubb or Kareem Hunt and to which I point out that D’Ernest Johnson proved Bill Callahan’s system can largely work for anyone who knows what holes to run through, so that’s not really an argument either.

Keenum went with the check-down guy nearly every time and couldn’t complete a pass deep all night. Five of eight offensive drives ended in no points, that’s 62.5% of the time the Browns failed on offense. To give you an idea of how bad that is in a seasonal comparison, the only two times the Browns were that bad were in Minnesota when Mayfield’s shoulder was at its then-worse and then against Arizona when Mayfield’s shoulder got somehow even more messed up.

Meaning, a healthy Keenum is on par with a wounded Mayfield. It should be noted that Mayfield moved the ball well in both the Arizona game despite the injury. He also did well enough against the Bears, a team as good defensively as the Broncos. He also played that game with the injury and without a harness to stabilize him.

So keep all this in mind before saying “we should just replace Mayfield with Keenum”.  If Mayfield is cleared to play, he needs to be under center. The team is not better without him, and it turns out a healthy Keenum is not better than a wounded Mayfield.