Cleveland Browns Film Room: Examining Odell Beckham Jr.’s 2020 season

Beckham was held back by Mayfield

One of the biggest improvements that Mayfield made this past season was getting his eyes to the right spots off the snap. Many have speculated that the gravitational field that OBJ exudes was pulling Mayfield’s attention away from other targets on the field. This isn’t the case, because if it were, Mayfield would have seen Beckham open on most of the routes he ran. Instead, he was completely ignored, even when he was flying wide open down the field.

Another argument is that Beckham tends to freelance and do his own thing rather than run precise routes. This is also false. He does freelance, but only after the play has broken down and the scramble drill has begun, something that another LSU receiver seemed uninterested in doing from time to time.

The problem was not Beckham’s inability to get open. Nor was it Stefanski’s inability to get him involved in the offense. The problem was Baker Mayfield never seeing Beckham open, and when he did, making inaccurate passes.

General manager Andrew Berry agrees; to imply that Mayfield and the Cleveland offense is better without Beckham is asinine. The improvement that Mayfield showed in 2020 was a result of him growing more comfortable within the new scheme, hard work, and good coaching. It wasn’t losing his most dynamic target and only deep threat.