NFL Week 4: Believeland?
We discuss whether the Browns will crush us again this season, and fate vs. free will as it relates to the NFL.
If the 2020 season ended today, Cleveland would make the playoffs for the first time since 2002.
The league’s most cursed franchise is on a three-game heater after running away from the Cowboys in Texas Sunday. The Browns got ideal performances from their stars — multiple touchdowns for Odell Beckham Jr. and Kareem Hunt, along with multiple sacks from Myles Garrett — to drive Dallas a step closer to a 6-10 season and subsequent NFC East title. The win pushed Cleveland to 3-1 on the season and light years away from a putrid Week 1 start that saw Baker Mayfield and company manage just six points in a blowout loss to the Ravens.
Does that put the Browns on the path for a playoff spot? It would be a tremendously 2020 thing to put Cleveland in the postseason for only the second time since the franchise was rebooted in 1999. The Browns certainly have the talent to finish among the top seven teams in the AFC. Here’s why it could be time to, at the very least, accept Cleveland could contend — and why this 3-1 record could just be a beacon of false hope.
Baker Mayfield isn’t trying too hard
Mayfield developed into a Pro Bowl-caliber quarterback over the latter half of his rookie season thanks to a versatile and creative offense called by interim OC Freddie Kitchens. That convinced the Browns to make Kitchens their full-time head coach. Everything promptly went to hell after that.
Kitchens was woefully unprepared for the overarching duties of running a team. Mayfield absorbed those struggles and filtered them through his passing game. He failed to develop chemistry with new arrival Beckham and often looked lost behind center, burning too much time in the pocket, missing open windows downfield, and taking too many hits — his sack rate rose from 4.9 percent to 7 percent last season.
Adding a new pair of offensive line bookends in Jedrick Wills and Jack Conklin has built back his confidence in the pocket, as has new head coach Kevin Stefanski’s passing attack. Stefanski has taken advantage of Mayfield’s ability to throw accurate darts on the run, rolling him out and allowing his high-level wideouts to improvise and find space in front of him.
As a result, his time to throw has gone up from 2.7 seconds in 2019 to 3.2 this fall. His average pass distance is the same as last season (8.1 yards), but his completion rate has risen from 59.4 to 62.6. His interception rate has dropped from 3.9 percent to 1.7 percent. He’s throwing for fewer yards than ever, but he’s also playing efficient football for a winning team. Those aren’t MVP numbers, but Cleveland will take it.
Kevin Stefanski has embraced the fun
The Browns have one of the top wideout tandems in the league and, if Nick Chubb is healthy, one of the top running back tandems. At no point should this team be boring. Stefanski, to his credit, appears fully aware of this.
This doesn’t always manifest in good ways. Punter Jamie Gillan, for example, took a fake punt for a loss of two yards in Cleveland territory back in Week 1. Even so, the team is committed to spreading the ball around and making the most of all its playmakers; 11 different players have earned targets in four weeks. Eight have taken carries out of the backfield, including this absolutely beautiful, game-sealing end-around from OBJ:
Losing Chubb to an apparent leg injury after he began the season averaging nearly six yards per carry, for lack of a better word, sucks. The Browns are insulated to take that loss, as Hunt and second-year back D’Ernest Johnson (13 carries, 95 yards) showed. The same goes for the injured David Njoku, who has had his targets taken by rookie tight end Harrison Bryant (four targets, four catches in Week 4). Even when bad things happen, the Cleveland offense is ready to promote a young player to fill that void effectively.
The Browns were often tortuous to watch in 2019. In 2020 they’re a RedZone staple.
A young defense has the star power to be so much better than it is
Cleveland has all the tools to field a top 10 defense. Garrett has five sacks in four games. Sheldon Richardson looks rejuvenated, and Larry Ogunjobi is careening toward a massive extension as one of the best young (and most underrated) tackles in the game. Denzel Ward, the fourth overall pick in 2018, is not just in the midst of his best season as a pro but also came up with the interception that officially ended the Cowboys’ comeback effort.
Those are all very good players, and they comprise a unit that … has given up 31.5 points per game. Opponents have put up more than 310 passing yards per game and a 100.2 passer rating against them. These are all bad numbers, but there’s too much talent on this roster for the Browns to languish outside the top 20 defenses. Cleveland’s defense has been a wet fart for much of the season and the team’s still 3-1. That’s a group that will likely get better before it gets worse, even if that’s a tune we’ve been singing for a few years now.
But, hang on, this is still the Browns
Cleveland’s three wins have come over teams that currently have three wins between them. None of them made the playoffs in 2019. Two were Washington and Cincinnati, who split the top two picks in last spring’s draft.
Three-game winning streaks aren’t anything new in Cleveland, either. This team won three straight in each of the last two seasons en route to sub-.500 finishes. The 2013 Browns won three in a row to improve to 3-2, then finished 4-12. Winning a little in the process of falling apart is a tried and true northeastern Ohio tradition.
The one loss on the resume is plenty troubling as well. Week 1’s loss to Baltimore looked like an exhibition between a Division I college team and a rugby club that got on the wrong bus. Lamar Jackson gashed that defense with impunity, completing 20 of 25 passes for 320 total yards and three touchdowns. Mayfield’s offense averaged only 4.5 yards per play and had as many turnovers (three) as third- and fourth-down conversions (three of 15).
That kind of performance isn’t unexpected; 75 percent of the team’s interceptions came against Washington’s below-average, still-growing starter Dwayne Haskins. Joe Burrow and Dak Prescott threw for more than 800 yards between them in games that should have been blowouts, but were kept exciting until the final minute thanks to Cleveland’s uneven defense.
Those are all concerns a 3-1 record could wash away … if this weren’t the Browns. No franchise has done more research in the field of crushing hope into tiny, tear-stained cubes. Cleveland looks good in 2020, yet Cleveland also looked good before the 2019 season and at the end of the 2018 season and got nothing to show for it but a revolving door of coaches. This year could be different, but we’ve said that before, and it never is.
The evidence is there. I want to believe. But still. The Browns. — CD
The truth is out there
There are too many conspiracy theories in this world, and I’m not here to add more. But a few outcomes this week led me on an internal Dana Scully vs. Fox Mulder exploration.
The Xbox rule
I had never heard of this theory until Texans fan Salvador R. came along:
For those who need more context, let me explain. The first generation of Xbox consoles was released in November 2001. That following draft, the Houston Texans, as an expansion team, held the No. 1 pick. They selected quarterback David Carr.
The Xbox 360, the second generation of consoles, launched in November 2005. The Texans were in the midst of a 2-14 season. They earned the No. 1 pick in the 2006 draft and used it on defensive end Mario Williams.
The third generation of consoles, which includes all iterations of the Xbox One, was first sold in November 2013. In April 2014, the Texans drafted Jadeveon Clowney with the first overall pick.
The next new Xbox comes out this November.
Believe or not believe? This all seems like nothing more than a coincidence, but if it’s not, it means Texans will earn the No. 1 in next year’s draft. And in that case, congratulations to the Dolphins:
Colts vs. Bears as an election predictor
For decades, the Washington Football Team “decided” the outcome of the presidential election. If Washington won its most recent home game before the election, then the incumbent or the incumbent’s party would win. If Washington lost, then the challenger would win. In recent elections, the rule has not proven to be accurate.
I think it’s safe to say there’s no correlation between what happens to one team on the football field and how the American electorate votes. But what about what happens to TWO teams?
The Colts beat the Bears on Sunday, and depending on how superstitious you are, either the Republicans will retain the White House (by whatever methods) or this premise is about to be debunked like the Washington one before it. As if we all needed one more thing to worry about.
Believe or not believe? Personally, I think there are more important factors that will determine next month’s election than the Colts stopping the Nick Foles-led Bears. And you can do your part by making sure you’re registered to vote, have a plan to vote, and support candidates who don’t make it harder for eligible voters to participate in our democracy.
Besides, neither the Patriots nor Alabama won a championship this year. Maybe 2020 is, among many, many other things, about breaking trends.
The consensus curse
When we make our game picks each week, we try to avoid unanimous decisions, particularly for primetime games. That didn’t happen in Week 4, when we all took the Broncos (correct), 49ers (nope), and Packers (TBD but probably correct).
But we are just a humble little newsletter. If we get a game wrong, we’re probably not getting called out publicly by a team’s official Twitter account. It’s not like we’re all picking the same team in front of millions of viewers on national TV.
And that was the moment, right before kickoff, when I knew the Eagles would beat the 49ers.
Believe or not believe? I don’t think the Eagles saw the Sunday Night Football crew all predicting the 49ers to win and then used it for extra motivation. But I do agree with Jason Kirk, a friend of this newsletter, who has long been a proponent of a simple rule. Expert panels should always have at least one dissenter to protect themselves from the meme treatment. — SH
Week 4 results, in five words or fewer
Ravens 31, Washington 17
Vikings 31, Texans 23
Texans, not Vikings, start 0-4
Panthers 31, Cardinals 21
Seahawks 31, Dolphins 23
Saints 35, Lions 29
Bengals 33, Jaguars 25
Buccaneers 38, Chargers 31
Browns 49, Cowboys 38
Rams 17, Giants 9
Ramsey-Tate brawl steals headlines
Colts 19, Bears 11
Foles can’t fix Bears’ offense
Bills 30, Raiders 23
Eagles 25, 49ers 20
The Week 4 Pain Index
The Lions and/or Chargers have had a starring role in each of our previous installments of the pain index. We could have featured both teams again after they crapped away big leads Sunday; in fact, we knew exactly when they were going to lose. For the Lions, it was as soon as they built a 14-0 lead:
For the Chargers, it happened when they were trying to run the clock out in the first half, holding a 24-7 lead. With 47 seconds left before halftime, rookie Joshua Kelley — filling in for an injured Austin Ekeler — fumbled near the Chargers’ own goal line. The Bucs quickly scored to cut the deficit to 24-14, the first of their five straight scoring drives.
But we decided to leave them off this week. It’s not that they don’t deserve inclusion. We just either need a break from both teams, or we’re becoming numb to their personal brand of misery.
As such, we’re going to turn our attention to three new teams. The Cowboys and Texans picked up where the Longhorns left off, completing a pitiful trifecta for Texas football over the weekend. Further north, the Bears perhaps held the fate of the free world in their hands — and they completely buckled under the pressure.
3. Bears
The Bears were 3-0 coming into the week, but their spotless record was not to be trusted. They needed miracle comebacks to beat the Lions and Falcons, while their other win came against the Giants. Those three teams have combined for exactly one victory so far this season.
They faced their first real opponent on Sunday afternoon and had the chance to prove to their doubters that they weren’t frauds. And welllll, uh, about that.
The Colts didn’t have much trouble with the Bears. Like, at all. Philip Rivers threw a touchdown pass on Indy’s first possession, and the Colts led the rest of the way. The Bears didn’t even sniff the end zone until there were less than two minutes left in the game.
After rallying the Bears to a win last week, Nick Foles got his first start of the season and his numbers looked pretty similar to the ones that got Mitchell Trubisky benched (61.9 percent completion, 5.9 yards/pass, one TD, one INT). Granted, Foles’ uninspiring performance came against the Colts’ No. 1 ranked defense, but Chicago’s schedule isn’t full of cupcakes anymore (vs. Bucs, at Panthers, at Rams, vs. Saints in just the next month).
Foles hasn’t gotten a win as a starter since the Eagles’ double-doink playoff win over, naturally, the Bears in January 2019. If he can’t break that streak soon, then Matt Nagy could go back to Trubisky and the Bears could find themselves with a different kind of pain, that of a QB carousel.
2. Texans
The Vikings had arguably been the most disappointing team in the NFL through the first three weeks. Luckily for them, their fourth game came against the Texans and that turned out to be the cure for all that ails them. Houston’s defense has had problems getting stops all year, but that was more understandable against the likes of Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson. On Sunday, it let Kirk Cousins do this:
And that’s when it was time to seriously worry about the Texans. Cousins had his most effective outing all season, while the Vikings’ ground game racked up a 162-yard, three-touchdown day.
The Texans were also hurt by their own struggles running the ball (26 carries for 96 yards this week), most notably whenever they approached the goal line. They were 0-for-3 in the red zone, including on their final drive when they were trying to tie the game. It looked like Deshaun Watson had found Will Fuller for a touchdown, until the call was overturned:
Once that last-minute comeback attempt was thwarted, the Texans fell to 0-4, a danger zone to any team with playoff aspirations. Since 1990, only one team has started the season 0-4 and then gone on to the postseason: the 1992 Chargers. Sure, there’s extra wiggle room this year because of the expanded playoff format, but that doesn’t mean anything if the Texans don’t get better fast.
This week was their chance to show they were a victim of the NFL schedule makers, that their record wasn’t a good indication of who this team really was. Instead, this loss just makes their circumstances feel more hopeless.
1. Cowboys
Here’s a short list of things that never happened to the Cowboys under Jason Garrett:
started a season 1-3
surrendered 38+ points in three straight games
allowed 307 yards rushing in a game
lost to the Cleveland Browns
All of those have now happened to the Cowboys under Mike McCarthy. That’s not a defense of Garrett, either. Despite Dak Prescott putting up record numbers, the Cowboys don’t look any better with McCarthy as their coach. They’re still underachieving, just in different ways.
The defense is mostly to blame for Dallas’ ice cold start. It can’t slow down anyone and continues to force Prescott and the offense to play from behind. Against the Browns, Prescott and Co. didn’t do themselves any favors with three turnovers, two of which directly led to Cleveland touchdowns.
To their credit, the Cowboys, down 41-14 at one point, battled back. They made it a three-point game with 3:42 seconds left, and were threatening to outdo their comeback from two weeks ago against the Falcons.
Then on the Browns’ next play, the Cowboys allowed Odell Beckham to score a 50-yard rushing touchdown. Game over.
The only difference between Dallas being 1-3 and 0-4 is the Falcons not understanding how onside kicks work. The Cowboys should be able to skate through the NFC East, but I thought that last year when an injury-ravaged Eagles team ended up winning the division almost by default. Currently, an injury-ravaged Eagles team is leading the division almost by default, though the Cowboys have the higher odds of taking the crown.
But taking into account both last season and their impuissant first month of this season, how can we give the Cowboys the benefit of the doubt right now?
Especially when they just gave up 49 points to the Browns. — SH