Cleveland Browns woke up feeling safe

To close out last season, the Cleveland Browns were feeling dangerous. That hasn’t been the case in 2019.

The Cleveland Browns were so not dangerous to Kyle Shanahan’s San Francisco 49ers, who beat up on the nice, safe team, 31-3.

The Browns were content to launch high-long passes all night, even though it was painfully obvious that those plays were not there even though the 49ers were short a starting cornerback.

If you have ever been around youth basketball, you can tell when the kids are tired, because they start launching bombs from farther and farther away from the basket, rather than playing hard and working the ball closer. That’s what it felt like watching the Browns.

Cleveland signaled from the get-go with the trick pass from Odell Beckham, Jr. to Jarvis Landry that they wanted to be about trickeration and long passes. Time after time Mayfield looked for the deep ball and easy success rather than short passes that had a better chance of succeeding

Mayfield did not have good pass protection at any time, but when he got in trouble he seemed to lock into OBJ or Landry and was no longer able to find his secondary receivers. This isn’t the Mayfield we saw last year who was able to make rapid reads and hit secondary receivers. Here’s an amazing stat for you — the number of passes thrown to wide receivers other than OBJ or Landry was……

Zero.

That’s right.  As shown in the box score, Mayfield targeted tight end, Demetrius Harris, twice, Nick Chubb once and D’Ernest Johnson once. That’s it.  Zero targets for Damion Ratley or other wide receivers on the team.

What kind of football is that? Something is drastically wrong with the play-calling or the quarterbacking or both. That’s the type of offense ran in the 1930s when only two wide receivers were targeted all game long.  Has that ever happened in the modern era?

As the game got away from them in the second half, it became clear that the Browns did not want any part of the 49ers, realizing that time is needed in order to score three or four touchdowns.

Normally a team may not shift into the hurry-up offense, but they do get up to the line quickly and get the playoff. Instead, the Browns were content to play it safe, take time off the play clock, and try to hold the score down.  There would be no comeback.

The coaches chose to hold the score down by not going for the first down on fourth down and long in the fourth quarter. Granted, most of the time that is going to backfire and the score is going to be worse. But if the team does not take that risk, there is zero chance of mounting a fourth-quarter comeback. Playing it safe and holding the score down seemed to be the game plan.

Something else that you should never see is the quarterback on the bench not doing anything. Baker Mayfield does not have to emulate everything that Tom Brady does, of course. But if you watch the New England Patriots, when the defense is on the field, Brady is always conferring with the assistant coaches and the backup quarterback, studying game photos on an I-Pad or a clipboard and discussing potential play calls.  They are preparing to succeed on the next possession.

The Browns, on the other hand, got locked into a foolish game plan but were content to play it safe.  It is not clear how much blame goes to the players and how much goes to the coaching staff, but there is plenty of blame to spread around.

What we saw on Monday Night Football was not football at all. It was Safeball. The Browns were content to hold the 49ers to 31 points and not take any risks.