CLEVELAND, Ohio — Baker Mayfield’s injured left shoulder ‘definitely was not’ a factor in his poor game vs. the Vikings on Sunday, sources tell cleveland.com.
Mayfield acknowledged on Wednesday that he wore a harness during the game, but that ‘it shouldn’t’ impact his throwing.
More inaccurate than he’s been in a game from start to finish, Mayfield left many wondering if the non-throwing shoulder was to blame, but it wasn’t the case. During Kevin Stefanski’s Zoom conference on Monday, he said he didn’t think it was the problem based on what he’s seen in practice, and the sources confirmed that on Tuesday.
Mayfield also hasn’t appeared on the injury report since he had to pop his shoulder back in three weeks ago against the Texans, and he hasn’t been limited in practice. He frequently had too much heat on many throws, which indicates he wasn’t limited by pain.
For most of the first half, he sailed his passes, and for most of the second, he either overthrew or underthrew many while the defense and running game carried the Browns to the 14-7 victory. In one of his worst games as a pro, he completed only 15 of 33 attempts (45%) for 155 yards with no touchdowns and no interceptions for a 59.5 rating, fourth-lowest of his career. He also went 0-for-6 on passes of 20 yards or more.
As for his new footwork, he said it was ‘clean’ and not a factor in his wild throws.
“Everybody’s going to try and make an excuse,’' Mayfield said. “I’ve just got to make the damn play. It’s that simple.’'
With the shoulder ruled out as an issue, resting Mayfield isn’t an option, and he’ll work this week to rebound and get back on track Sunday against the 3-1 Chargers, who beat the Raiders 28-14 on Monday. Mayfield will go head-to-head against reigning NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year Justin Herbert, who broke Mayfield’s rookie TD mark last season.
Meanwhile ESPN analyst and former NFL quarterback Dan Orlovsky hopes Odell Beckham Jr. isn’t in Mayfield’s head again after the two connected only twice out of seven targets for 27 yards. Mayfield also didn’t look Beckham’s way a couple of other times when he was open.
“He wasn’t his accurate self,’’ Orlovsky, a huge Mayfield supporter, told cleveland.com Tuesday. “Sometimes you just have days like that, but I did not like his eyes this past weekend.
“He was putting them in the wrong place versus the coverage, looking at the wrong side of the field, and as a quarterback you know where you’re supposed to look more often than not, so I didn’t like that.’’
Orlovsky saw Mayfield revert to some old behaviors with Beckham in the receiver’s second game back from his torn ACL.
“He was sticking on guys too long and that guy was mainly Odell,’’ he said. “Just really putting his eyes on him and sometimes it’s not there, so move off of him. I felt like the eyes were on him a little too long in multiple situations, so I didn’t like that. Usually his eyes are really tied together with his progression and that wasn’t the case this weekend.’’
He hopes Mayfield isn’t allowing Beckham’s presence to throw him off.
“I can’t sit here and say ‘no, no shot,’’' Orlovsky said. “I can’t, but I hope that’s not the case. In the first game (five completions in nine targets for 77 yards vs. the Bears), I actually kind of liked what they did a little bit. The back-shoulder go-ball the third down earlier in the game. But this second game back, there was three or four plays where I was ‘dude, get off of him. He’s not open. Get off of him.’ But then there were two different plays where he’s open and he doesn’t look at him.”
Orlovsky, who broke down the Mayfield-Beckham tape extensively last season, acknowledged the disconnect was real.
“One hundred percent it was an issue,’' Orlovsky said. “I mean, shoot, the play he got hurt on in Cincinnati, there’s no reason with the play called vs. the coverage that Cincy played, that he would throw that ball to Odell other than ‘I’m just throwing this ball to Odell.’ In that same game later on, when Odell obviously is not there, he’s hurt, they run the same exact play in the same exact formation vs. the same exact defense and he throws it to the right place.’’
If it were up to Orlovsky, he’d address it right away this week.
“If I’m in the room with him, I’ve got to have a real conversation with him, about ‘hey, bud, we’ve got to nip this real fast,’” Orlovsky said. “I don’t want to blow this out to be a huge deal. But I didn’t like what I saw with it.”
He said he hopes things get better when Jarvis Landry returns from his sprained knee as soon as the Cardinals game Oct. 17, “but then what’s confusing to me is there’s two, maybe three plays — I know two definitively — where Odell is open and he’s part of a natural progression of the play, and he doesn’t even look at him.’’
He described Mayfield’s approach to Beckham as ‘a very odd thing. … As a quarterback you’re really taught early on, ‘get the play called, what’s the play, and then where are my players?’ It seems like when Odell is in, it’s ‘get the play called, where’s my players, what’s the play.’ He reverses that order sometimes and [Beckham] becomes the focus.”
As for the third-and-5 at the end of Vikings game on which Mayfield and Beckham weren’t on the same page and the deep ball fell short and inside, Orlovsky agreed with Mayfield that he needed to verbalize his intentions.
“If Baker was going to throw it as soon as Beckham won on his route and was wide open, Odell needs to know that,’’ Orlovsky said. “Playing quarterback is often too much of a one way street. You’ve got to listen just as much as you talk. Just because you want that doesn’t mean that he’s gonna feel it or see it the same way.’'
But that’s not the one that bothered him the most.
“That’s just a miss to me where maybe it’s the first time you’re going through that,’' Orlovsky said. “But the stuff that’s in the flow of the game, that’s the one that you go ‘dude, what’s going on here?’’’
He noted that the Browns have such a good coaching staff that “I’ve got to imagine that if I’m seeing it, they’re seeing it.’’
He admitted he’s surprised that Mayfield has only two TD passes through four games, but attributed it to a number of issues.
“He missed one the other day when he scrambles on fourth down and throws back across his body to Kareem [Hunt],’’ he said. “That’s one of the plays I’m talking about with his eyes. They’ve gone for it a couple of times on fourth-and-short and obviously haven’t gotten it, so there’s maybe four or five more touchdown passes if you convert those. They also sat on the ball in the second half of a couple of games because they were in control.’’
Orlovsky also didn’t attribute Mayfield’s inaccuracy issues to possible left shoulder pain.
“Throwing is attached to everything, so if there’s discomfort or something going on yeah, but again, that doesn’t mean that your eyes gotta be in the wrong place either,’’ he said. “I’m not overly concerned with the accuracy.’’
The dud of a game didn’t change Orlovsky’s opinion that Mayfield will have a monster season. In preseason, he predicted 37 touchdown passes, 11 interceptions and a 70% completion percentage.
“The whole eye thing has got to get handled very quickly, and very quickly with Odell,’’ he said. “[If so] I think he should catch fire here, so to speak.’’
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