Browns: Baker Mayfield proves what he can do without Odell Beckham Jr.

Baker Mayfield thrives without Odell Beckham Jr. in Browns’ victory.

The Browns were able to defeat the Bengals on Sunday, thanks in part to Baker Mayfield and his arm. It was the first game Cleveland played after cutting Odell Beckham Jr. The Browns were able to post 40+ points for just the second time all season and did so behind big days from Baker Mayfield and Nick Chubb. Mayfield had meniscal numbers compared to Joe Burrow, but that was due to Mayfield only having 10 plays in the first three drives. The score at the end of that third drive was already 24-7.

So Mayfield clearly wasn’t needed to throw it a lot. When he did, he looked fantastic, with only two passes being completely off target, and another two falling incomplete after a receiver got their hands on it. The others saw Mayfield intelligently throw the ball away to avoid forcing something that could hurt the team.

Mayfield even showed off just how good he is on deep routes still, catching with Donovan Peoples-Jones on a 60-yard bomb that saw the second-year receiver go in standing for a touchdown. Proof that timing does in fact matter, as Peoples-Jones was still shifting his hips while running, altering where he was going on the field when Mayfield let go of the ball. Mayfield trusted Peoples-Jones to be where he was supposed to be and that was exactly what happened.

Timing was the issue with Baker Mayfield and Odell Beckham Jr.

Beckham running his own routes is being dismissed by the receiver’s fanbase but this wasn’t just a new accusation. Kevin Stefanski’s system was also timing and route-based. Everyone was told this, so finding out that Beckham did his own thing perfectly explains so many of the disconnects between the two. It also explains why such a “prolific talent” needs 11-12 targets a game to make an impact.

In a scheme like the Browns, you don’t get to have a success rate of just 50% as a receiver (which is what Beckham had in Cleveland) and still be called upon.

With the thought of timing routes now being spoken about far more publically, fans will now have to actually wonder what Mayfield missed, and what did the receiver not run effectively. Granted, that doesn’t mean that Mayfield is without blame for some of the throws, a fourth-quarter pass to Jarvis Landry skipped short but it wasn’t some egregious miss.

Mayfield clearly threw to a target on the field and misjudged where Landry would end up being. It was a mistake that everyone, including CBS color-analyst Tony Romo knew, was a smart mistake. The ball was near Landry but was away from all of the defensive players who could catch it. It was still an incompletion, but it wasn’t Mayfield forcing the pass into stacked coverage.

Mayfield made all the passes he needed to make in their win over the Bengals and that should give fans an idea of what he could be without Beckham weighing him down.