Baker Mayfield dazzles, but I have some questions: While We’re Waiting

What a night…. what a night! The Browns won their first game in roughly 636 days and did so in about as dramatic a fashion as they possibly could. The adventure had the full spectrum of the Browns experience. In those first 28 minutes, it was the painful experience we have all come to expect on the national stage. It reminded us why we prefer these sorts of displays stay hidden,  forever buried in the myriad of other Sunday games that actually mean something. I keep harping on those first 28 minutes. I do so because after that 28th minute expired, everything changed.

The Browns punted for the sixth time in six opportunities with 1:23 left in the first half and the Browns down 14-0. The stadium was becoming an overwhelming bowl of negativity and you could feel the pressure barreling down on the players and more specifically the coaches. To that juncture in the game, the Browns had found a way to generate just 77 yards of total offense on their opening five drives of the game. Taylor had been sacked three times and mustered 14 total passing yards. It was about as bad a performance from an NFL offense as I could remember. Then, Baker Mayfield entered for an injured Tyrod Taylor and the whole game swung. The young gunslinger from Lake Travis, Texas led the Browns on four scoring drives, threw 17-23 for 201 yards, and led the Browns on a clutch 15 play endeavor to take the lead in the games final minutes. Mayfield somehow found a way to pull off as dramatic a rookie debut as we have ever seen in Cleveland. It was the stuff of legends. But I have questions.

Here is where the crux of my point will come to fruition. I want to make this clear, though: I could not be any more happy for Hue Jackson and company. We all have our opinions about the head coach, and I have been one to pen a few critical pieces myself, but winning a game like that after suffering through some very public humilaition has to feel great, and I felt great for him too. But I also have to ask the hard questions as well.

This Browns team never let Mayfield get any first team reps in the preseason or camp – not intentionally. The Eagles preseason game it happened out of necessity. Their theory has been preaching patience and giving Tyrod all the first team reps to allow him to become as accustomed to his new teammates as possible. Patience with the rookie, and as many reps as possible for the veteran. I didn’t love the theory but I can get behind a decent plan if everyone has bought in.

Now, this theory could have changed come the dates of closed practices when all fans and the media are shut out, but we have never heard concrete rumblings of the rookie working with the first team. I will also admit,  I gave them the benefit of the doubt here. That Mayfield must not seem ready to them at all. They’re mitigating the transition for him and keeping mistakes at a minimum. Starting the ball security focused Taylor was starting to make more sense. I understood their theory: play tough, ball-hungry defense, and win with a conservative offense that takes what is given and refuses to turn the ball over. I got behind it, and I believed Mayfield just simply can’t be ready. There is no way they would hold him out unless he had shown he can’t handle the game yet.

As Taylor left the game last night, I just kept thinking about how much I didn’t want Mayfield to have to take over this mess. The way the stadium felt, the way the offense was tripping over itself at position after position. It just didn’t feel like the right time for the kid to make his debut. Then he made the debut. Then the debut turned into two solid drives with sayings like, “wow, that ball came out quick” and “the game seems slow for him.” I was saying and thinking things about Mayfield I knew to be true when I fell in love with his quarterback profile last October, but I just couldn’t believe how well the game was going for him, and how clear the difference was between Mayfield and the now injured Taylor. It was night and day for the Browns offense.

So, my hard question is this: if you could see the clear difference in how your offense functions with Mayfield, and you can see the traits that transfer better for what your offensive coordinator likes to approach play-calling, how can you reasonably sit Mayfield and presume Taylor is the answer here? I found a sense of anger growing as I pondered this. Mayfield was so clearly better that it made me think about losing the first two games, and how Hue, a coach in absolute win-now mode coaching for his football life, could justify sitting the more talented player and the better fit for his offensive coordinator. Should the Browns be 3-0 just by simply having played Mayfield? I can’t help but think about this. What justification is there for holding him out when he makes your offense, the roster, and the fans that much better? Yes, I am saying Mayfield lifted the entire franchise up last night and if you can’t see that, I am sorry. He is the type of player that does this. They are a rare breed.

I have some pent up anger about this, and I hope someone in the beat asks that specific question. We deserve an answer. For now, though, I am going to revel in the spoils of victory and feel the warm tingly feeling of knowing we might just have an answer at quarterback for the foreseeable future. I have always said that for this franchise to ever turn it around, it is going to take one remarkable player and an even more remarkable man. The type of player who others feed off of, and he raises the temperature in each room he is in. I will tell you this much: it’s early, we all know that, but Baker Mayfield raised the temperature in First Energy Stadium last night.