Avoiding The Baker Mayfield Discussion

NFL Week 14 – Tired of the “Baker Mayfield Discussion?” You’re not alone. And folks, the next five weeks of Browns football are going to be downright wearying.

Walkthrough will spare you a rehashing of all the Mayfield argument permutations and talking points: the High Floor/Low Ceiling theory, the No Better Options corollary, the Jared Goff/Carson Wentz Regret Management Paradox. The fact that we’re still scrutinizing game-managerial wins over opponents such as the Texans and Lions for signs of excellence while beard-stroking about injuries and the quality of his receivers in YEAR FOUR should speak for itself, yet we are still staring into Mayfield’s bowl of alphabet soup and hoping for a message from heaven.

Down the stretch, the Browns face four fellow AFC playoff wannabes, starting with the sputtering Ravens on Sunday, plus the Packers. They have a 25.5% chance of reaching the playoffs. They’re unlikely to get there with running and defense alone. Something’s gotta give. Mayfield will either play well enough to win three or four of these games or he won’t. And if he somehow finds a middle ground—if the Browns narrowly beat the Ravens and Steelers thanks to points off turnovers and the Raiders surrender, for example—the Browns need to figure out whether “middle ground” is worth $200 million or so and what they can do if it is not.

Roll the segment header!

Coming off the Bye: Cleveland Browns

Occasionally throughout the midseason, Walkthrough will spotlight a team coming out of its bye week. But you probably figured that out from reading the header.

The Browns Story So Far: Blame injuries. Blame unrealistic expectations. Blame Odell Beckham if you want to sound silly. No matter who you blame, the outcome has been the same: the Browns passing game collapsed after the team started the season 3-1, and their defense hasn’t been consistent enough to nail down close victories.

A curb-stomping by the Patriots shattered any illusion that the Browns were the AFC’s “physical” playoff team, and losses to the Steelers, Ravens, Chargers, and Chiefs have sealed off several of the Browns’ playoff access points. Their best chance (11.8%) of reaching the playoffs is winning the AFC North by walking away from a Steelers/Ravens/Bengals explosion like a cop in a Michael Bay film.

What’s Going Right: Mostly running and defense.

• The Browns running game ranks second in adjusted line yards, first in second-level yards, and second in open-field yards. Those are impressive numbers for a team that has been without Jed Wills, Jack Conklin, Nick Chubb, and Kareem Hunt at various times this season.
   
• The Browns defense ranks third on first downs and first in the back zone (between the opponents’ 20- and 39-yard lines). They beat the Broncos and Lions by forcing multiple three-and-outs in opponents’ territory; the same tactics would also have beaten the Steelers if the Browns had scored a few more freakin’ points.
   
• Myles Garrett is second in the the NFL in sacks and leads the league with 28 quarterback hits. The Browns rank a respectable 10th in adjusted sack rate.
   
• The Browns defense ranks sixth against short passes and fifth in passes over the middle, and they would rank first in passes over the short middle if we “officially” tracked that category. Think of them as the anti-Seahawks, a team that cannot be dink-and-dunked upon.

What’s Going Wrong: Passing, passing, passing.

• Tight end David Njoku is on pace to lead the Browns with 577 receiving yards. In a 17-game season. Injuries across the receiving corps have been an issue, but a fully healthy Jarvis Landry, Donovan Peoples-Jones, and Rashad Higgins don’t exactly terrify the league’s better pass defenses.
   
• The Browns offense has the third-worst raw sack percentage in the NFL at 8.6%. Yes, they were missing both tackles and their starting quarterback at various times. But their Pro Bowl-caliber interior line has also been intact for most of the season, and their offense is built to keep them out of obvious passing downs.
   
• The Browns are just 9-of-23 on fourth-down conversions. Again, a team with a strong running game and a capable quarterback should be better in this area, especially because the analytics-minded Browns are likely to remain aggressive on fourth downs.

Where They Stand in the Playoff Picture: As mentioned earlier, the Browns positioned themselves poorly by losing several important conference and divisional games. A win over the Broncos gives them one critical tiebreaker as they vie for a wild-card spot, and they face each of their unpredictable AFC North rivals in the final weeks.

What’s Next for the Cleveland Browns: Maybe they somehow win the division. Maybe they come out on top of a multi-team 9-8 wild-card clusterhump. The issue for the Browns, both if they reach the playoffs and in 2022 and beyond, is determining what they are truly good at besides running the ball and waiting for Garrett to generate sacks.

The Browns organization has never had to address “how to sustain and build upon success” questions during the modern era of salary caps and free agency. The 2021 season has left them scratching their heads for answers, and the tougher decisions are yet to come.

TankWatch: Jacksonville Jaguars

As the 2021 season draws toward its conclusion, TankWatch examines teams at the bottom of the standings and determines how they can claw back toward respectability over the next few weeks/months/years.

The Jaguars Season in a Nutshell: The early part of the Jaguars season was defined by several goofy Urban Meyer dustups, including return-to-campus rumors and history’s most awkward uncle-at-the-stag-party lap dance. A midseason victory over the Dolphins and a stunning upset of the Bills transformed the Jaguars from a historically embarrassing team to just a run-of-the-mill terrible team. The Jaguars have since backslid instead of building on their modest midseason success, and poor coaching still appears to be one of the team’s biggest problems.

Coaching Situation: Meyer’s name hasn’t really come up during the Lincoln Riley/Brian Kelly college football game of musical thrones, and that’s a mixed blessing for the Jaguars. Meyer doesn’t skip team flights so he can get to second base anymore (to our knowledge), but he still makes some puzzling decisions.

For example, Meyer appeared to bench James Robinson for fumbling after Aaron Donald ripped the running back’s spleen out in Sunday’s loss to the Rams. Robinson vanished for most of the first half while Carlos Hyde churned along in his place. Meyer explained after the game that Robinson was not benched; he’s merely on a pitch count because he is less than 100%. But Robinson carried the ball twice after the two-minute warning of a 37-7 loss. Later in the week, Meyer said that he doesn’t “micro-manage” running back usage.

The Jaguars season has been full of situations like that one. Meyer and his assistants appear to just be making stuff up as they go along, and Meyer sounds more like a meddlesome owner than a head coach when he talks about his team. (You better believe that Jerry Jones has strong opinions about which Cowboys running back is in the game and why).

Quarterback Situation: Trevor Lawrence reminds me a little of John Elway way back in 1983. His best throws (and a few of his runs) look like video game power-ups. He sometimes drills 100 mph fastballs into his receiver’s bellies or threads an impossible needle on the run. Look past his highlights, however, and Lawrence’s delivery is inconsistent, he forces too many passes, and he’s stuck freelancing on third-and-10 because a receiver dropped his first-down pass and no one was open on second down.

Lawrence will either overcome adversity and become an All-Pro or succumb to it. The Jaguars’ No. 1 priority must be to eliminate as much adversity as possible as soon as possible, because adversity is at least a touchdown favorite against any young quarterback.

Building Blocks: Lawrence. Robinson. Laviska Shenault is a Deebo Samuel in search of a competent play-designer. DJ Chark, who is on injured reserve with a fractured ankle, is one of the NFL’s best young deep threats. The offensive line is full of veterans who will soon need to be replaced, but tackle Jawaan Taylor and guard Ben Bartch are capable young starters.

Travis Etienne (remember him?) will add an all-purpose backfield weapon in 2022, and Jamal Agnew was emerging as more than a kick-return threat before suffering a brutal hip injury.

On defense, Josh Allen has developed into a Pro Bowl-caliber all-purpose defensive end.

One of the frustrating things about the Jaguars roster is that the defense is loaded with veterans in their fifth seasons such as Dawuane Smoot and Rudy Ford who are probably peaking, while the offensive skill positions are flooded with veterans such as Laquon Treadwell, Tavon Austin, James O’Shaughnessy, and Hyde who should not be getting many snaps for a rebuilding team. The Jaguars sometimes look like an AAF team that spent its entire budget on a big-name coach and quarterback.

Future Assets: The Jaguars have an extra third-round pick from the Panthers (CJ Henderson trade) next year, as well as either a fifth- or (much more likely) a sixth-rounder from the Eagles thanks to the Gardner Minshew trade.

The Jaguars have over $70 million in paper cap space for 2022, but they also have Chark and offensive linemen Andrew Norwell, A.J. Cann, and Cam Robinson to either extend or replace.

Rebuilding Plan: Building around Lawrence begins with extending Chark and Norwell and/or Robinson, creating enough continuity on the offensive line to prevent a 2022 crisis. The best available athlete when the Jaguars are on the clock will almost certainly be an edge rusher; providing Allen with a bookend would instantly upgrade the defense out of the bottom quartile.

The Jaguars also need real solutions at tight end, and the 2022 draft would be a great place to find a starting-caliber playmaker in the second or third rounds.

Final Prognosis: An offense of Lawrence throwing to multiple YAC threats such as Shenault, Robinson, and Etienne and a deep threat such as Chark from behind a non-terrible offensive line sounds good enough to compete for a wild-card in 2022, doesn’t it? And Meyer was hired to be an offensive imagineer who could make the most of all that talent.

So the Jaguars future still boils down to how dialed-in to NFL reality Meyer really is and if assistants Darrell Bevell, Brian Schottenheimer, and Joe Cullen are helping or hurting the cause. On paper, the Jaguars should be a fun-to-watch tough out, even with all of their injuries. The Khan family should spend the rest of the season determining why they are not, and what should be done about it.

Leaderboard of the Week: Slot Receiving

Every Thursday, Walkthrough examines a random (and usually obscure) leaderboard from Football Outsiders, Sports Info Solutions, or elsewhere on the analytics Interwebs in search of deep truths and wisdom.

When we think of slot receivers, most of us picture shifty little specialists such as Cole Beasley. But the league leaders in receptions from the slot are often every-down receivers and WR1-types who happen to line up in the slot a whole lot.

Here are the NFL leaders in receiving yardage when lined up in the slot, per Sports Info Solutions:

Kupp became the toast of Twitter early in the week for his ultra-technical explanation of the opposing defense for one of his big receptions against the Jaguars. Give yourself a pat on the back if you understood what Kupp was saying; heaven knows a healthy chunk of football Twitter already has. And if you’re shaky about the details, nod along like Walkthrough does when talking to our mechanic. “You say the intake manifolds are leaking transmission fluid all over the timing belt and that’s lowering the torque on the brake calipers and damaging the alternator and the subwoofer? That’s what I thought, too. Here’s my credit card.”

Swooning over Kupp using the jargon of his trade is the new swooning over Sean McVay for being able to name every starter on another team’s defense, something many of my colleagues can do after two or three beers.

Anyway, Kupp has been targeted 42 times for 30 catches and 388 yards from the slot from empty-backfield formations. No other receiver has been targeted more than 24 times in such circumstances. Tyler Boyd of the Cincinnati Bootleg Rams is second.

Deebo is Deebo. His 17.8 yards per reception from the slot rank second to Deonte Harris of the Saints (18.8) among receivers with more than 30 slot targets. Deebo also leads the 49ers with 25 targets when split wide; Brandon Aiyuk is second with 24. The 49ers don’t throw to their outside receivers much, because their quarterback cannot reach them.

Godwin leads all receivers with 18 targets and 17 receptions on slot screens. Watch any Buccaneers game and you will see what a major component of their offense the slot screen to Godwin has become. Rondale Moore of the Cardinals has also been targeted 18 times on slot screens, with 15 receptions. Davante Adams is third with 12 receptions on 13 targets for just 60 yards. The yardage leader on slot screens is—you guessed it—Deebo Samuel, with 183 yards on six slot screens thanks to a pair of huge gains.

Renfrow is the first “traditional” slot specialist on the list. Anyone looking to give their third All-Pro receiver vote to a designated slot receiver—we know you’re reading, Peter—should choose Godwin, who has mostly stuck to the slot while Antonio Poopweasel has been unavailable. One look at this list indicates that voting for a slot specialist is a silly idea. Renfrow is having an excellent season, of course, and perhaps an AFC Pro Bowl season, but not an All-Pro season.

Neither Adams nor Jefferson is in the slot all that often, so they catch a disproportionately high percentage of their passes when inside. The old “move the WR1 inside” trick to try to isolate coverage against a nickel defender/linebacker or exploit a soft spot in a zone still works. The Packers put Adams in the slot often when they are in “get him a touch” mode, as the screens we just mentioned and the next paragraph will illustrate. Keenan Allen has worked effectively out of the slot for most of his career. Tyreek Hill and Marquise Brown are all-purpose speed guys in non-traditional offenses.

Gesicki’s presence is interesting. Teammate Jaylen Waddle is tied for fifth in slot receptions but has gained just 547 yards, placing him 13th on the yardage list. Gesicki has been targeted 13 times for eight catches and 71 yards from the slot on RPOs; Waddle is 10-8-59 on RPOs. Davante Adams leads in the NFL in slot RPO targets and catches with 16 and 15; he’s second to Marquise Brown in yardage with 83. Adams is a free agent this offseason. The Miami RPO Machine should make a run at him!

Mark Andrews ranks just behind Gesicki and Kelce among tight ends with 547 yards. Cordarrelle Patterson leads all “running backs” with 152 yards on slot receptions. The rest of the running back slot reception list is pretty uninteresting.

Looking for Beasley? He ranks eighth in the NFL with 52 catches but 19th with just 487 yards. One issue is that Beasley has recorded just 200 YAC from the slot, where many plays are specifically designed to generate YAC. Overall, Beasley has been just fine but ultimately underwhelming, just like the Buffalo Bills.

Let’s briefly wrap with the teams getting the least amount of production from their slot receivers:

Congratulations to the Jets for finishing a respectable ninth in a Leaderboard of the Week category! Give Jamison Crowder a raise!

The Seahawks don’t mess with any of that newfangled slot-receiver stuff and deny the existence of third wide receivers in general. The Texans will be just fine once they coax Wes Welker out of retirement to join Danny Amendola who, it must be pointed out, still plays regularly for them. The Lions, like the 49ers, know better than to ask their quarterback to throw to targets outside the numbers all that often. T.J. Hockenson and Amon-Ra St. Brown each have 33 slot receptions for them.

Even without KJ Hamler, the Broncos should be better in this category: Tim Patrick and Noah Fant are credible slot threats, and quarterbacks with Teddy Bridgewater’s skill set typically feast on underneath stuff. Blame injuries and a plain-yogurt offensive identity.

The Steelers are stunningly inefficient in slot passing. Chase Claypool is a respectable 12-261 on 20 targets, but Diontae Johnson is 17-144 on a whopping 23 targets (zero drops, at least), Pat Freiermuth is 18-142 on 22 targets (though with three touchdowns), and Najee Harris has nine slot catches for 52 yards on 11 targets. This category is a repository for much of the Steelers’ ineffective “Let’s Pretend Big Ben’s Still Got It” quick-game nonsense, and it shows.

That brings us to our final segment of the day!

Thursday Night Sportsbook: Pittsburgh Steelers (+3) at Minnesota Vikings

It’s the Rebuilding Procrastination Bowl! Winner gets to put off blowing everything up and starting over for another year!

Ben Roethlisberger admitted that the mileage is starting to get to him during Tuesday’s press availability. “It’s my shoulder that hurts more than my elbow,” he said, per Brooke Pryor of ESPN.com. “My elbow feels great, thanks to the doctors. It’s just dealing with throwing. Wish someone could keep track; like I’ve thrown a million throws in my life, so at some point your shoulder starts to wear down a little bit.”

Did you hear that, Steelers fans and local media? You can stand down with the “DAD’S FINE” wishcasting. When a quarterback uses a phrase like “dealing with throwing,” the end is truly nigh. Being Ben Roethlisberger must hurt much more than watching Ben Roethlisberger.

On the other side of the ball, the Vikings might get Dalvin Cook back (little deal) but have lost Adam Thielen for the foreseeable future (huge deal). K.J. Osborn is darn good by the standards of a Vikings No. 3 receiver; the problem is that Dede Westbrook is their likely No. 3 receiver now, and the Vikings can only funnel so much offense through Justin Jefferson.

Walkthrough hates Big Ben on short rest but absolutely loathes the Vikings without Thielen. We’re leaning toward the Steelers and the points for not-quite-analytical reasons: the Steelers excel at slopping out must-win games (see last week), while the Vikings are hilariously inept at it (see last week). That’s not exactly a sustainable trend, but c’mon, it’s the Steelers and Vikings.

If you don’t like either team, here’s a silly little prop to keep you interested: Kirk Cousins Over 22.5 completions at +105. Cousins has cleared that number eight times this season and reached exactly 22 once. If this game remains close (it will), the Thielen-less Cousins is liable to lean into his Dinky Dunkingsworth persona. It’s a chance to play Count Along With Cousins on a Thursday night: the ultimate drinking game!