1: What about Baker?:
Mayfield has been holding the ball too long, and has sometimes been inaccurate.
He himself says that he needs to trust the system and his teammates. This of course refers to the timing aspect of this offense; Baker has to throw before receivers make their moves, or look back towards him.
But the thing is, he was doing pretty well with that in 2018, and throughout his college carreer, he threw "with anticipation".
One smart analyst thinks that OBJ has made Mayfield greedy, and that he holds the ball waiting for OBJ to get loose deep. I don't know.
But Bernie Kosar says that both opposing teams this season ran mostly zone coverage, and that it takes longer for things to open up vs zone.
That surprised me, and I still don't get it, but it was Bernie, right?
Bernie was pretty adament, and said that against zone, "you have to protect longer" and stuff.
I think I'm beginning to understand: A receiver can't "blow by" a zone vertically. The only thing that's open quickly is a dart underneath, which is probably nailed immediately by a defender who never took a backward step.
Vs man coverage (oh now I get it) the reads are clear (at least on the outside). The QB gets to see which way the Free Safety moves to determine...ahem well for a sharpshooter like Mayfield, he can beat tight coverage vs a DB who is running with his target.
Vs zone, the reads are much fuzzier, and the crossing routes are stifled by human road-blocks; they have to stop cold ("sit down") to catch passes, because if they don't, they end up in a hospital.
...well there is more to this, but I seem to have similar technical glitches communicating with Bernie as I do with the Browns for some reason, so I'll get back to you on that.
...anyway, Bernie says Baker will be fine.
Nick Snook says that the Browns actually played well vs the Jets. That's a good sign, since it includes RG Eric Kush. Nick cites some PFF stats which are encouraging.
Baker held the ball too long; it wasn't about the Offensive Line.
Naturally, when the Rams come to town, everything will be different.
As Bernie Kosar said, this will be the real test. Bernie made no predictions (duh), but did say that he expected Baker Mayfield...
Bernie is a politician, and I can't nail him down.
I believe that if BK were on Truth Serum, he would have said something like this:
Baker Mayfield will remain aggressive and do better this week than he did last week, despite confronting a better defense with Aaron Donald and a scary passrush.
No Njoku etc but Bernie expects Baker to not suck or choke.
Bernie didn't stick his extremely short neck out beyond that, but I will:
The Browns should be able to run the ball on the Rams, sorta. Mayfield (with Higgins back and a mental reset involving Landry) should get rid of the ball (accurately) quickly under the lights.
(*it could be disasterous, if his receivers blow their routes/make the wrong moves, but that's the weakness of timing offenses. At least he should have Higgins back, and appreciate Landry more*).
The Browns' defense is rounding into form, and---damn last call I'll be back okbye
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