Berea, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – It took four weeks, but the Browns believe they not only found their offense, but they’ve found the identity they’d been looking for during the first month of the season.
Dropping 40 points and rolling up 530 yards on a divisional rival will do that for a team and franchise quarterback.
“In the sense of I think offensively we kind of found our identity, yeah, but we are definitely not satisfied,” Baker Mayfield said Thursday. “I would not say that we are right where we want to be. We have to continue to get better. I think the best part about this team is it continues to focus on the next opportunity to get better.”
The Browns hadn’t put up those kinds of numbers since 2007.
Running back Nick Chubb carried much of the load and helped lift a gigantic weight that had been hovering over Mayfield, head coach Freddie Kitchens and the team off everyone’s shoulders.
“You get judged at the end of every week, and it is straight pass-fail,” Kitchens said. “What you have to do sometimes is you have to temper those from the standpoint of you want to make just as much progress from the wins as you do the losses. Just because you lose a game does not mean you did not make progress, and just because you won a game does not mean you did not go backwards. You have to evaluate, call a spade a spade and say that these are the areas that we have to get better.”
Chubb, who prefers to let the movement of his legs do his talking over his lips, ran 20 times for 165 yards, including three touchdowns as the Browns rolled to a 40-25 victory to claim first place in the AFC North.
His 14-yard and 88-yard runs made the Ravens defense look hapless.
Then there was Mayfield, who completed 20 of 30 passes for 342 yards with a touchdown and interception.
“I think that was the blueprint,” left guard Joel Bitonio said. “We ran the ball early. It was not as successful, but we wore them down a little bit and then finally we broke some big runs in the second half. Some shots down the field. Big plays either from Jarvis on a couple of those little passes to Ricky [Seals-Jones] running down there for the 60-70-yard catch.
“Just mixing it up and keeping the defense guessing. There were motions. There was movement, there were different looks and different routes out of the same looks. You have to think, ‘Oh this is a run look’, and we end up passing out of it. Things like that. Changing it up and getting into a rhythm. I think it started with establishing the run. It was not perfect in the first half. We only maybe ran for 40 yards in the first half or something, but you do it, you establish it, you show them those formations and then you can do some things off of those.”
Receiver Jarvis Landry caught eight passes for a career-high 167 yards, but he remains in the concussion protocol and whether he’ll be available in San Francisco remains to be seen.
Although Beckham caught just two passes for 20 yards, his impact can not be overstated. Beckham drew attention and blocked down field regularly all afternoon.
Tight end Ricky Seals-Jones benefitted from the extra attention paid to Beckham with three catches for 82 yards, including a nine-yard touchdown in which he was wide open and a 59-yard catch-and-run.
For Kitchens, winning in the NFL is a simple formula.
“It is about running the ball, stopping the run and taking the ball away more than they get it from you,” Kitchens said. “That is what it is with me. That is not real fancy, but that is the way games are won and lost.”
It’s no coincidence Chubb’s running, the additional motions, running different plays out of similar formations and even though the double revers pass from Odell Beckham Jr. deep to Damion Ratley fell incomplete, it kept the Ravens on their heels and pressure off Mayfield.
“It felt good. It felt like we were in a rhythm finally,” Bitonio said. “It felt like we were getting first downs on drives. We did not have third downs [and 15] where we have to drop back and pass. We had that first one where it was not great, but after that, I felt like everything was kind of just moving. It was different on third down. It was third and short or something like that. I also thought they did a great job of overcoming some penalties. In the first game, we had some penalties and we did not keep those first downs, but this game we had a couple first and 20, first and 25 and we overcame those and got some points out of those.”
So now the questions shift from, “Where is the offense and what is wrong with it?” to, “Can it be sustained going forward?”
“Absolutely,” Mayfield said. “I think we set the standard in how we have success and obviously, starting up front. You talk about football, it starts up front with the offensive line and getting the run game going. That allows the receivers to have open lanes and play action. Anytime you can give Nick Chubb the ball like that, he is going to make a lot of plays. We have set the standard on what we need to do and how I need to play.”
Monday night in San Francisco the 3-0 49ers await and the Browns head west fully understanding they’re still not a finished product.
“It has to start somewhere,” Kitchens said. “Hopefully, we can string together good practices, we can string together good games and ultimately the wins come, hopefully and we will see where we are. Some of it has to do with where you are starting. I think everybody on our team understands the expectations, but we put those expectations on ourselves.”
