Cleveland Browns: Ravens not impressed with Mayfield’s performance

Cleveland Browns quarterback put up a solid performance against the Baltimore Ravens, but some members were not as impressed with Baker Mayfield’s performance.

The Cleveland Browns defeated the Baltimore Ravens 12-9 after kicking a game winning field goal in the final seconds of overtime on Sunday.

The Browns offense was carried by the performance of rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield, who completed 58.1 percent of his passes for 342 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. The interception was more Rashard Higgins’ fault than Mayfield’s, as Higgins broke his route earlier than Mayfield was expecting.

Following the game, some members of the Ravens defense were impressed with Mayfield’s  performance, including safety Tony Jefferson – via Ryan Mink of baltimoreravens.com.

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"“Baker is one of those guys,” safety Tony Jefferson said. “We talked about it all week. He’s a fighter, he’s a playmaker. He’s got that ‘it’ factor to him.”"

The Browns offense may not have put themselves in good enough positions to score touchdowns, but Mayfield was able to get the offense moving against the Ravens. The Baltimore defense has been one of the better defenses this season, but Mayfield seemed to be comfortable on Sunday.

Mayfield made multiple throws into tight windows, giving his receivers the best chance to make a play on the ball. He played with a lot of confidence, and was not afraid to test the Ravens defense.

Those types of throws did not impress Ravens linebacker Kenny Young, who felt that the Ravens were not taking advantage of Mayfield’s throws when he was asked to give his opinion of Mayfield – via Steve Doershuck of the Canton Repository.

"Young: “What do YOU think?”Reporter: “I don’t know. I’m not a player.”Young: “I mean, you watched the game. What do you think?”Reporter: “I’m not sure. it looks like he stares down receivers a little bit. Maybe telegraphs some passes.”Young: “You just said it right there. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what type of quarterback he is.”"

Ravens veteran safety Eric Weddle also said that Mayfield’s throw to Derrick Willies in overtime that put them in range for the game-winning field goal was more about a missed tackle than where Mayfield put the ball – via Doershuck.

"“It was a throw and a missed tackle,” Weddle said. “We had a pressure on, and we had good coverage. (Willies) ran through the tackle and ran another 20 yards."

Weddle would also go on to say that Mayfield could have “easily thrown three or four more picks” on Sunday.

To see the differing opinions from the Ravens defense about Mayfield is interesting. Some of the defensive players seems to feel that Mayfield was able to pick apart their defense and make plays. But there are others that feel Mayfield was only able to make those plays because the defense was not taking advantage of opportunities to make a play on the ball.

A quarterback throwing for over 300 yards does not happen by mistake. There may be some fluky plays mixed into his performance, but for the most part Mayfield was making the throws that he needed to make. Stats are not the be-all and end-all, but they help show how well a player performed.

Mayfield may not have been as accurate as desired, as he completed less than 60 percent of his passes. But with Mayfield’s gunslinger attitude, sometimes the completion percentage is not going to accurately represent the game the quarterback played.

The comments from the Ravens may be more about criticizing themselves instead of giving an opponent credit for their performance. To see a veteran like Weddle make those comments could be him trying to motivate the rest of the defense.

No matter what, Mayfield playing the way that he did is impressive for a rookie in only their second start. There are going to be growing pains as a rookie quarterback, but it is a great sign that opponents are talking about the mistakes that they made instead of the talking about mistakes that the Browns made.