Joe Burrow, Bengals leave Baker Mayfield, Cleveland Browns in the dust
It was supposed to be “THE” year for the Cleveland Browns. The 75th anniversary of this one-time great, historic organization was supposed to see the franchise re-claim the throne lost after the Jim Brown era.
There was plenty of reason to believe in those hoard-to-quite, orange helmets, too.
The 2020 Browns knocked off Big Ben Roethlisberger for a huge playoff win–their first since the 1994 season. The narrative in Cleveland was finally changing. Everyone on offense was returning. Free agency and the draft saw resources dedicated to bolstering the defense.
The only thing left to do was play the games and wait for the playoffs to start.
Leave it to the expansion-era Browns, though. With two weeks remaining, the 7-8 Cleveland squad has officially been eliminated from the playoffs. Instead of coming together and bonding over decades of frustration, the 2021 version of Paul Brown’s team will be remembered as inconsistent and unlikeable. As a team supposedly loaded with talent that always shrunk when the money was on the line.
In year two, Kevin Stefanski’s offense got off to a quick start, while the defense took a while to hit its stride. By the end of the season, the roles flipped. Stefanski was “de-geniused.” His offense couldn’t score. At times, it seemed like completing a forward pass for a first down was too much to ask.
To make matters worse now, and probably the longer term, while the Browns are focusing on sending off Big Ben into retirement, a new foe promises to be a thorn in side of the franchise for the next 10-15 years.
While the Browns play Monday Night Football’s meaningless game at Heinz Field, Joe Burrow will be resting up his knee for a home playoff game on the Ohio River.
All Burrow does, of course, is remind you that he’s miles better than Baker Mayfield. It’s not Mayfield hate. ‘Dems the facts, kid. If you had to have one, right now, who would you pick? If Baker’s your answer, well thanks for reading, Emily.
Cincinnati has an elite quarterback in addition to one of the top receivers in the league, Ja’Marr Chase. Yes, the Browns got the best of this combo several weeks ago, but this duo just sleighed the mighty Patrick Mahomes.
Chase plucks the ball out of the air like he’s playing the game in slow motion. When the Browns get these type of players, then we can seriously start talking about Cleveland winning the Super Bowl.
Instead, we have Mayfield, who’s OK. Cincinnati had an OK guy not that long ago. His name was Andy Dalton. They made the playoffs a few times, but never seriously contended with him under center.
We’ll see what the future holds for Mayfield, but considering Nick Mullens engineered the most memorable drive of the season, it won’t be surprising to see the front office devise a back-up plan for the QB1 spot.
The Browns are in need of elite players. They have Nick Chubb, and he’s valuable, but as we saw in Green Bay, when the game’s on the line, you better have a quarterback who can stand in and make the throws, in addition to a receiver who’s going to come up with the ball.
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There will be plenty of times to speculate about how the Browns can do this, but with Myles Garrett, Nick Chubb and Denzel Ward in their primes, Andrew Berry and company are on the clock.