As the Cleveland Browns prepare to welcome in the Arizona Cardinals for Week 6 discussion around Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield continues to burn. While the offense put up 42 points and over 500 yards, with zero interceptions, Mayfield’s lack of plays late in the game has some Cleveland fans frustrated.
With the undefeated Cardinals coming to town, the Browns may need to put up a big number on the scoreboard once again. Kyler Murray leads a high-powered offense with weapons galore in the passing game and Kliff Kingsbury has done a good job orchestrating the offense.
With Murray, Kinsbury and all of those weapons on the other side, Mayfield will likely have to put together a great game against the Cardinals defense.
Thankfully for Mayfield and the Browns, where the Cardinals defense struggles is where he thrives:
To underline that this is early, here are the completion heat charts for Mayfield and the Cardinals.
They’re similar, but not really deserving of a 100 point score. I also didn’t run past years to scale the sim scores as that takes lots of compute time, but will in the future. pic.twitter.com/pAFuokDVl5
— Josh Hermsmeyer (@friscojosh) October 12, 2021
The heat map on the left is red where Mayfield completes more passes than the average quarterback in the NFL while the heat map on the right is red where Arizona’s defense gives up more completions than the average NFL defense. While not a perfect match, as the tweet’s author notes, they are very close.
Given that these are comparisons versus the average, it is fair to say that Mayfield thrives in places on the field that the defense he faces in Week 6 struggles. Will it be enough to overcome the home team’s injuries and the visiting team’s offensive firepower? Time will tell.