Late in the second quarter of the Browns-Titans game on Sunday, the cameras showed Cleveland first-year coach Kevin Stefanski on the sideline and my mind flashed to the scene on the restaurant stairs in "Get Shorty," where Delroy Lindo's character says to John Travolta's: "You don't know me. You only think you do."
This was, you see, supposed to be the most predictable game script of the NFL weekend. The top two rushing offenses in the league, squaring off in a December matchup. Derrick Henry. Nick Chubb. Kareem Hunt. Who's going to want to throw the ball with all of that going on?
Stefanski's Browns, that's who. Baker Mayfield was 20-for-25 for 290 yards, four touchdown passes and no interceptions in the first half. Cleveland built a 38-7 halftime lead and hung on for a 41-35 victory that improved its record to 9-3 and stamped the Browns, if they still needed stamping, as one of the leading AFC playoff contenders.
Let's pause for one second here and contemplate what it means for the Browns to be 9-3. The most recent time they had as many as nine wins in a season was 2007, when they went 10-6, finished second in their division and missed the playoffs. Prior to that, their previous nine-win season was 2002. This is only the third time Cleveland has won at least nine games in a season since 1994, when Bill Belichick was still coaching a Browns team that would end up moving to Baltimore and becoming the Ravens.
And they still have a quarter of a season left to play.
This says a lot about Stefanski, who took over an admittedly talented team that underachieved last season amid all kinds of chaos and apparent regression by Mayfield, the 2018 No. 1 overall draft pick. This season's Browns still have all of the talent they had in 2019 (minus injured receiver Odell Beckham Jr. and injured cornerback Denzel Ward), plus significant offensive line upgrades that have helped the run game dominate. But while Stefanski has shown a willingness to tailor game plans around the team's grind-it-out strengths, he's a thoughtful and creative enough coach to identify spots in which Mayfield has the best chance to succeed. Sunday against the Titans, who don't rush the passer well and are apparently easy to confuse in coverage, was such a spot, and so Stefanski came out firing.
Just because the Browns don't always ask Mayfield to be the superstar doesn't mean they don't think they can. After all, Mayfield's four-touchdown first half Sunday was only the second four-touchdown passing half an NFL quarterback has had this season. The other one also belongs to Mayfield, who threw four in a second-half comeback against Cincinnati in Week 7.
Mayfield is one of those players who gets a ton of outside attention whether things are going well or going badly. So after the best game of his NFL career, we thought we'd start this week's overreactions right there in Cleveland, where Mayfield and the Browns arrived home Sunday night feeling like winners for one of the precious few times in recent franchise history.
The Browns will pick up Baker Mayfield's fifth-year option
A quick refresher on this: Mayfield is in the third year of his rookie contract. NFL rookie contracts are four years long, but every first-round pick's contract includes a team option for a fifth year that must be exercised or declined by the first week of May following the third year.
Starting with Mayfield's draft class -- the class of 2018 -- these fifth-year options will be fully guaranteed at the time they are exercised, which means that by early May 2021, the Browns have to decide whether they want to guarantee Mayfield something in the range of $25 million-plus for 2022.
It's not an easy call if you aren't sure he's your franchise QB of the future. And Mayfield has certainly had his share of games the past two years that would give a team reason to wonder.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. A game like Sunday's makes it much more likely that Mayfield will have his option picked up. He's also eligible for a contract extension this offseason, and it's possible the Browns will initiate those discussions as well with him and his agent. Much will depend on the way the rest of this season goes and how Mayfield performs. But Stefanski and the new coaching staff have told anyone who'll listen that they believe they can win with Mayfield.
New general manager Andrew Berry was part of the Cleveland front office in 2018 when the team drafted Mayfield first overall. It's not as if he has had to sell himself to the powers that be that he can be the guy. If the Browns don't pick up the option this spring, they have to be thinking about what to do at the position long term, and it's unlikely they will have a high enough first-round pick to afford them a shot at one of the draft's top quarterbacks.
The Browns still have things to prove. According to research by the Elias Sports Bureau, their minus-15 point differential is the worst in NFL history for any team with at least nine wins through it first 12 games. (Surpassing the 2004 Falcons, in case you were wondering.) A 32-point loss to Baltimore and a 31-point loss to Pittsburgh raise legitimate questions about their ability to make a deep playoff run against the conference's top teams. They do get another shot at each of those teams to try to turn that narrative around, but in the meantime, your skepticism is justified.
Inside the building, though, the Browns believe they're putting together something sustainable. And at this point, they consider the 25-year-old Mayfield a part of that. Remember, Stefanski is Mayfield's fourth different head coach in three NFL seasons. The fact that he'll be back to coach him again in 2021 is in itself a victory for Mayfield's continued development. And the way things clicked for Cleveland on Sunday gives you reason to feel good about everyone's future there.
The Giants are going to be a tough team to play in the postseason
Don't look now, but the 5-7 Giants have won four games in a row, and the most recent might have been the most impressive. Down 5-0 at the half Sunday in Seattle, New York muscled up in the second half and beat the Seahawks 17-12. The Giants discombobulated Russell Wilson and the high-scoring Seattle offense all day, and they wore them down with their own running game duo of (checks notes) Wayne Gallman and Alfred Morris in support of backup quarterback Colt McCoy. None of this makes any sense at all, but it happened.
Some team is going to win the NFC East. The Giants have the inside track -- ESPN's Football Power Index gives them a 65% chance to win it. If and when they do get to the playoffs, Seattle is a team they're likely to play. And they just held the Seahawks to 12 points at home.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. I'm not saying pencil them in for a Giants-style surprise Super Bowl run. Eli Manning, Justin Tuck and Plaxico Burress aren't walking through that door. They still have to get to the playoffs, and as hot as they are right now, they're not such a dominant team that we'd be surprised to see them lose three or four in a row at this point.
But while it might lack star power, the Giants' defense is legit, and this team is building confidence every week. If the Giants get into the playoffs, their first game will be at home, and they just showed Sunday they can beat a playoff-caliber NFC team on the road.
Would the Giants be favored in a January rematch with the Seahawks? Absolutely not. But would the Seahawks look forward to playing them? Not after Sunday, they wouldn't.
The Jets lost Sunday's game on purpose
The facts of the case are as follows: The winless Jets, in line for the first pick in the 2021 NFL draft and a shot at Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence if they lose all the rest of their games, held a 28-24 lead on the Raiders with five seconds left in Sunday's game. The Raiders faced third-and-10 from the Jets' 46-yard line. The only way the Jets could lose was to give up a Hail Mary touchdown. Instead of playing everybody back and defending the end zone, New York defensive coordinator Gregg Williams elected to call an all-out blitz, sending seven pass-rushers after Derek Carr, which left first-round pick Henry Ruggs single-covered down the field. Carr found him for the winning touchdown.
According to research by ESPN Stats & Information, there have been 251 pass plays run since 2006 that met the following three criteria: 1. final 15 seconds of regulation, 2. lead between four and eight points, 3. 40 or more yards to the end zone. Of those 251 plays, the only time a team has sent six or more pass-rushers was the Jets on Sunday. Remember: Literally everything in this paragraph has been a completely objective fact, without judgment.
Verdict: OVERREACTION. I admit the facts don't help my case here. I admit that, if a team was trying to lose a game on purpose, it would look a lot like this looked. I admit that the Jets organization is better served at this point by losing, and maximizing its chances at Lawrence, than by winning. Jacksonville is 1-11 and right on the Jets' tails in the "race" for the top pick, after all.
But I do not believe teams lose games on purpose. Williams and Jets coach Adam Gase aren't out there trying to secure Lawrence for whoever's inevitably going to succeed them in their jobs in 2021. This is just Williams being Williams. He calls all-out blitzes in situations like this. (Well, not exactly like these, as the aforementioned Stats & Info note indicates.) He's aggressive. He was too aggressive in this situation, and the Jets lost because of it.
The only thing that beats you there is a touchdown, so send every defensive back you have to the end zone, not the backfield. You can call it a dumb call if you want, but I don't think there's any chance that Williams called that blitz with the intention of losing the game. Everything I know about Williams tells me he just thought they'd get home and Carr would never get a chance to throw it. All of that said, I think we can all agree that we're looking forward to seeing how creatively the Jets lose against the Seahawks next week.
Matt Nagy won't be back as Bears coach in 2021
The Bears won their first three games of this season. Then they benched quarterback Mitchell Trubisky for Nick Foles, lost their fourth game -- 19-11 to the Colts -- but bounced back with victories over Tampa Bay and Carolina to improve to 5-1. The Bears were 5-1.
After blowing a 10-point lead in the final three minutes and losing to the Lions on Sunday, the Bears are 5-7, on the outside of the projected NFC playoff field and looking in. Could they recover? Of course. But Trubisky has started the past two games, Foles was hurt last week and the healthy backup this week, and the fact of the matter is they really don't know who their best option is.
It's ugly there, and win or lose the rest of their games, the Bears are going to carry a bunch of uncertainty into the offseason at the most important position.
Verdict: NOT AN OVERREACTION. Man, the NFL season is longer than you think, isn't it? The Giants were 1-5 after six games and the Bears were 5-1. They now have the same record.
But I digress. The point is that, even with all of the quarterback uncertainty, when you asked people around the league in October if they thought Nagy was safe, the answer was yes. When you ask those same people now, the answer is no. Six-game losing streaks don't help your case when you're trying to convince ownership to bring you back -- not after you took the job with a reputation as a QB whisperer, couldn't get the former No. 2 overall draft pick fixed, then brought in a pricey veteran alternative of your choosing, and he didn't turn out to be the answer, either.
Nagy and general manager Ryan Pace (who traded up to draft Trubisky in 2017 ahead of a couple of guys named Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson) are unquestionably on hot seats with a quarter of the season left to go. The Bears' remaining schedule features Houston, Minnesota, Jacksonville and Green Bay, and they have to win all four of them to finish over .500. They haven't won since Oct. 18. You like their chances?
The Patriots are going to make the playoffs
New England scored 45 points on Sunday, beating the Chargers 45-0. Most teams beat the Chargers, but they do it more dramatically. You don't just go out and destroy the Chargers -- you wait until the very end, then rip their hearts out with an impossible comeback. But Bill Belichick does not care about how other teams do things. He's an iconoclast. Everybody else lets the Chargers think they can win? We're going a different direction. We're going to score 45 points out of nowhere in a season where we've had only four other games in which we've scored half that many. Make sense? Not at all, but it's 2020, and things are weird.
The Patriots' win was their fourth in the past five games and improved their record to 6-6 with the Rams, Dolphins, Bills and Jets left to play.
Verdict: OVERREACTION. No, I'm not writing off Belichick. But the math says there's a lot more that has to happen before we can start penciling in the Patriots' 12th straight postseason appearance -- the FPI gives them a 12% chance to make it. That 6-6 record puts them 10th in the AFC. (They'd move up to ninth with a Ravens loss on Tuesday to Dallas.) There will be seven playoff teams in each conference this season -- eight if things get weird with the schedule in the final month and games can't be rescheduled -- so ninth or 10th isn't good enough.
The seventh seed right now belongs to either the Colts or Titans, whichever doesn't win the AFC South, at 8-4. So even if the Patriots win three of their final four games to finish 9-7, that might not be enough wins to get them in. Heck, 10 might not be enough.
What's happening in New England over the second half of this season is encouraging, and it might earn quarterback Cam Newton a 2021 encore there. But a lot still has to happen -- for the Patriots and to more than a few of their AFC wild-card rivals -- if Newton and Belichick are going to end up in this particular postseason.