CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Browns have nothing to show for what they felt were three great weeks of practice, as they dropped the final two games before the bye week break, and then, had a 27-13 setback against the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts Sunday.
Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield understands that the team has had good practices, but also, that those mean nothing if they do not show up on game days.
“We have to show up,” Mayfield said, matter-of-factly after the loss to the Patriots. “All the talk, it doesn’t matter until you go out there and prove it on Sundays. The week of practice is great, but unless you take it out there on Sundays, it still doesn’t matter.”
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The Browns are in the midst of a three-game losing streak, and at 2-5, their once bright hopes for breaking the National Football League’s longest active playoff drought, are flickering as they fell three games in back of the Baltimore Ravens for the top spot in the AFC North Division.
Although the Browns have five games within the AFC North Division over the second half of the 2019 season, coach Freddie Kitchens is looking no further than the next challenge on the schedule, this week’s road game at the Denver Broncos.
“I’m worried about winning one game,” Kitchens said. “That’s it. I want to win one game next week.
“Everything’s in front of us. I don’t know what else to say about that. Everything’s in front of us, so win the games we’re supposed to win, and we’ll be fine. It starts in Denver. That’s who we play next, so let’s have a good practice Wednesday and see where we’re at the end of the week. We had a good week of practice this week, but it got to Sunday and we didn’t do the things we had to do to win the game. It’s just as simple as that. Just win one game and see what happens. There’s nine games left.”
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Mayfield is confident the Browns can reverse their fortunes, but knows it will not be easy.
“I still think we can turn it around,” Mayfield said. “We have another AFC opponent in the Broncos, a road game, and then, five division games after that. There’s some good teams. We play the Bills as well at home, so there’s some good competition, some very important games, division games, but we’re not going to get ahead of ourselves.
“I’m not going to lie to you and say that ‘if we win all of our division games, we’re going to be fine.’ We have to take care of business against the Broncos.”
Although the Browns are confident that they still can achieve their goals, Mayfield understands the kind of work it will take to accomplish what the team set out to do at the start of the season.
“Everybody has to be singularly focused on doing your job, not worrying about what’s going on, on the outside,” Mayfield said. “We have to be willing to sacrifice the ultimate price to get to what we talked about in the preseason, our ultimate goals.
“We have to be able to sacrifice each and every day, time, focus. It’s going to be a long stretch, but our guys are capable of doing that, so it’s my job to make sure we do that each and every day.”