Cleveland Browns: Baker Mayfield will have a lot to prove in 2020

After struggling throughout the 2019 season, Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield is going to have a lot to prove in 2020.

The 2019 season was supposed to be a coming out party for Baker Mayfield and the Cleveland Browns. Instead, it was a party full of naysayers getting to watch the Browns struggle amid internal dysfunction.

The Browns were expected to be a playoff team in 2019 with all of the talent they had put together. After their Week 17 loss to the league worst Cincinnati Bengals, they will be watching the playoffs from their couches like Browns teams have done since 2002.

Mayfield was one of the players who was supposed to elevate the Browns and establish himself as a top quarterback in the NFL. But he was at the forefront of Cleveland’s issues this season, as he struggled to help get the offense over the hump.

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Mayfield started all 16 games in 2019, the first time in 18 years a Browns quarterback has done so, and completed 59.4 percent of his passes for 3,827 yards, 22 touchdowns and 21 interceptions.

After a stellar rookie season where he burst onto the scene, defensive coordinators found Mayfield’s weaknesses and used them to their advantage. Mayfield struggled to adjust to the defensive adjustments and he would look flustered all season because of it.

Mayfield also could not build as much chemistry with his receivers as he wanted to. Both Odell Beckham Jr. and Jarvis Landry were dealing with injuries from the beginning of the season, not allowing them to practice with Mayfield as much as they would have preferred. Mayfield’s lack of work with his receivers, especially Beckham, was evident on game days because they were regularly dealing with miscommunication.

It was clear, however, that Mayfield was mainly having issues dealing with the pressure from defenses and struggled when forced to scramble out of the pocket. Opposing defenses were able to find Mayfield’s tendencies when pressured and took advantage of it.

Even when Mayfield could make throws from the pocket, he had issues with his accuracy and decision-making. He was regularly sailing throws over his defenders and throwing into windows he should not have been throwing into, which is a cause for his 21 interceptions. He also had several near interceptions defenders dropped.

Mayfield acknowledged his mechanics were not great in 2019 and is something he needs to work on in the offseason. He said in a press conference Thursday that he knows exactly what he needs to work on in order to improve. He is confident enough in himself that he said he will not be working with a passing coach.

There was already plenty of pressure on Mayfield in 2020 knowing that he had to improve on his performance this season. There was a lot of hype and attention surrounding Mayfield after he set the rookie passing touchdown record and finished second in the Rookie of the Year voting in 2018. But now that he is saying he can fix his mechanics without the help of a coach is going to create even more people looking at his performance next season through a microscope.

Mayfield is going to have to prove he can make the necessary adjustments to his game in order to reduce his turnovers and become a more efficient quarterback. It is clear he has plenty of arm talent, but being an inefficient quarterback is not going to let him show off that arm talent.

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The Browns quarterback is going to need to be all-in during the offseason and improve himself. Because if the Browns want to be playoff contenders in 2020, the success of the team will depend on Mayfield’s performance.

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