CLEVELAND — Ask and one shall receive.
After struggling to make plays from the pocket for much of the first three weeks of the 2019 regular season, second-year quarterback Baker Mayfield had his best performance of the season, and with a strong rushing game from Nick Chubb and three forced turnovers from the field, led the Cleveland Browns to a 40-25 victory over the Baltimore Ravens at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore Sunday.
“It’s kind of like what I was talking about earlier in the year,” Mayfield said.
“We’ve got a bunch of guys that are more than capable of making plays. It’s one of those things where you can pick your poison of what you want to take out of our offense. We have to be very good at working on whatever they’re not taking out -- we have to get that.”
Here is a breakdown of Mayfield’s second road start of the 2019 regular season.
What Mayfield did?
In his second career road start against the Ravens, Mayfield exorcised the demons from the Week 17 game in 2018 and engineered seven scoring drives by completing 20 of his 30 attempts for 342 yards with one touchdown and an interception.
Mayfield took one sack on the opening drive for a five-yard loss, but was able to avoid Baltimore’s fierce pass rush for the remainder of the game. It was the least amount of sacks allowed by the Browns in any single game this season.
Analysis
After inconsistent play over the first three weeks, which drew criticism from the likes of former NFL coach Rex Ryan, Mayfield led five touchdown drives, and the second-year quarterback said his success and the achievements of the offense come down to individual improvements.
And that was obvious from the first of those scoring drives.
Mayfield was seven for eight with 87 yards and the touchdown to tight end Ricky Seals-Jones on the drive, and had to overcome a first-and-25 after a blindside block from wide receiver Damion Ratley on a Nick Chubb run.
Following the penalty, Mayfield completed an 18-yard pass to tight end Pharaoh Brown, and then, a 19-yard swing throw to running back Dontrell Hilliard that turned a third-and-two from the Baltimore 35-yard line into a first-and-goal from the nine.
“Absolutely not, Rex Ryan does not get any credit for this week’s win,” Mayfield said.
What’s next?
The Browns will get an extra day’s worth of work this week as they prepare for their second game on Monday Night Football in the last four weeks.
Following the victory over the Ravens and return flight home to Cleveland, the Browns began their work for this week’s road trip to San Francisco for a primetime matchup against the 49ers at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California.
What are they saying?
“I played better,” Mayfield said of the play calling against the Ravens. “Make it easier on him. When the quarterback sucks, it’s got to be pretty hard to call plays. I just did my job. I got the ball out of my hands and into the playmakers’ hands, like I’ve been talking about – what we needed to do.”
Browns coach Freddie Kitchens added, “I thought he was consistent. He made some good throws, but again, this was just one game for Baker. He’s going to try to get better. We’re just going to try to get better with Baker, too. I thought he trusted those guys up front, and I thought he played pretty well.”