(In this series, Touchdown Wire’s Mark Schofield takes a look at one important metric per NFL team to uncover a crucial problem to solve for the 2020 season. In this installment, it’s time to look at where things went wrong for Baker Mayfield and the Cleveland Browns in 2019, and how a lone bright spot and a new head coach might make for a beautiful pairing in 2020).
Every offseason a champion is crowned.
For example, many are looking at what the Arizona Cardinals accomplished over the past few months and moving them up in their pre-season power rankings. (Touchdown Wire is no exception to this rule). After all, they acquired one of the NFL’s best wide receivers in DeAndre Hopkins and are pairing him with a rising, second-year quarterback in Kyler Murray and an offensive-headed head coach in Kliff Kingsbury.
Does that sound, in any way, like last summer?
Remember when the Cleveland Browns acquired Odell Beckham Jr., another of the game’s best wideouts? To pair him with a rising, second-year quarterback in Baker Mayfield and an offensive-minded head coach in Freddie Kitchens? The Browns were on the tip of everyone’s tongue as a team on the rise in the AFC, and were in the mix during the preseason as Super Bowl contenders.
Then, the games began.
Kitchens failed to live up to the hype as a head coach, showing that he was probably best suited at this point in his career as an offensive coordinator. Beckham had a solid season, with 74 receptions for 1,035 yards, but saw the end zone just four times, his lowest TD output since the 2017 season when he caught three touchdown passes in just four games.
Then there was Mayfield, who could not produce the kind of second-year leap as a passer Browns fans were hoping to see. He completed less than 60% of his passes for 3,827 yards and 22 touchdowns, along with 21 interceptions. His NFL quarterback rating dropped from 93.7 in 2018 to 78.8 in 2019. His interceptions soared from 14 to 21, and his Adjusted Net Yards per Attempt dropped from 6.77 to 5.27. That ANY/A of 5.27 placed him 27th in the league among qualified passers, behind Josh Allen, Sam Darnold and Lamar Jackson (the other starting quarterbacks who were drafted along with him in the first round in 2018) and behind the aforementioned Murray.
Cleveland finished 6-10, and Kitchens was fired.
So, where did it go wrong for Mayfield?
As the sage Doug Farrar pointed out recently, a glaring weakness for Mayfield in 2019 was his production when throwing from a clean pocket. Using charting data from Sports Info Solutions, Farrar found that when he was kept clean, Mayfield posted these numbers: “When he wasn’t harassed, Mayfield still threw a league-high 16 interceptions on 394 attempts, and a league-worst 84.0 quarterback rating.”
Making matters worse for Mayfield, from a clean pocket Pro Football Focus charted him with an Adjusted Completion Percentage of 72.7.
That was dead last among 27 qualified passers.
To set the stage for how Mayfield and the Browns can right the ship in 2020, there is an area of his game that stood out in 2019: Play-action. Mayfield had an NFL passer rating of 102.5 in 2019 when using play-action, which put him 11th in the league in that category. Furthermore, Mayfield saw an increase in his completion percentage of 10.1% on play-action versus non play-action throws, and that increase was the biggest in the league. In terms of Yards per Attempt, Mayfield’s YPA of 9.0 on play-action throws was an increase of 2.6 over his YPA of 6.4 on non play-action designs, and that increase was the third-most in the league. Mayfield had a TD/INT split of 11/6 on play-action throws, but 11/15 on non play-action passes. Those 15 interceptions on non play-action throws trailed only Jameis Winston and Philip Rivers.
Enter Kevin Stefanski.
While Mayfield was good on play-action in 2019, there was a passer who was better: Stefanski’s former quarterback Kirk Cousins. As highlighted just yesterday when discussing the Minnesota Vikings, Cousins led the league with an NFL passer rating of 129.2 on play-action throws. Stefanski built an offense based on an outside zone running scheme, with play-action designs flowing naturally off of that structure:
This is your textbook flood design working off of an outside zone look to the left side. On this play the Vikings have 20 offensive personnel in the game, and after making his run fake to the left Cousins boots back to the right. The route he throws is a pivot route to Adam Thielen, who starts on the right side, shows the defense a potential slant route and then breaks back towards the right sideline to mirror his quarterback. The other two, deeper, options are an intermediate crossing route from left to right and a deep comeback route along the right sideline.
Stefanski also did a great job of showing the opposition plays like this, and then changing a route or two to hit them in the downfield passing game. Take this touchdown against the now Las Vegas Raiders:
Facing a 1st and 10 against the Raiders, Cousins lines up under center and the offense has 11 offensive personnel in the game. Thielen aligns in the slot to the left. Cousins carries out a run fake to the right and then boots back to the left. Given what we have seen, we might expect the Vikings to give him a three-level with Thielen running a deep corner route, drawn in with the black arrowed line. Instead, Thielen works all the way across the formation, and Cousins hits him on a deep throwback for a touchdown.
The elements are in place for the Browns, under Stefanski, to build an offense drastically similar to what Cousins was running last year with the Vikings. Cleveland still has Beckham and Jarvis Landry, two ideal wide receivers for this kind of system. The offensive line should be much improved, with the acquisition of right tackle Jack Conklin in free agency and the selection of potential starting left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. in the first round. They also have a tandem of running backs in Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt that fit well in an outside zone running scheme. Finally, Austin Hooper, another acquisition this off-season, given Stefanski the potential security blanket of a tight end that this offense needs.
These are the ideal pieces to run such an offense, and as he showed at times in 2019, Mayfield is comfortable on such designs:
Cleveland shows the Buffalo Bills an outside zone running play to the right, before the quarterback boots back to the left. Mayfield has a flood design to choose from, but with Landry open immediately in the flat he simply takes the easy throw. His receiver bursts upfield for an easy 18-yard gain.
So, the pieces are certainly in place for Stefanski and the Browns.
Now it is up to Mayfield to deliver. But given what he did on play-action designs in 2019, even during a down season for him, betting on a rebound in 2020 might be a safe investment.