The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly: Cardinals vs. Browns Week 6 Recap

The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly: Cardinals vs. Browns Week 6 Recap

Nick Pedone
2 years ago
3 min read
The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly: Cardinals vs. Browns Week 6 Recap

It was a downright ugly performance for the Cleveland Browns on Sunday at FirstEnergy Stadium, where the Cardinals walked away with a 37-14 victory.

Let's try to make sense of what happened.

The Good: Donovan Peoples-Jones

There wasn't many good things to take away from this game, but Peoples-Jones seemed to have a regular season breakout.

With the longterm future of Odell Beckham Jr. massively in doubt through six weeks, it's nice to see a sixth-round pick from Michigan can be called upon to produce.

With that in mind, it would be nice to see the Browns lean on Peoples-Jones at times. If he is going to be given the keys to the receiver room at some capacity in the future, it would be wise of the Browns to keep going his way.

The Bad: Baker Mayfield's Offense

This isn't completely Mayfield's fault, but he's the guy that orchestrates that unit, and it was awful.

Without two starting tackles, Jarvis Landry, and both running backs, the Browns seem to be spiraling offensively, and it didn't help that their QB gave the football away three times. Kevin Stefanski has to do a better job of adapting to these types of things.

Yet still, with under five minutes to go in the third quarter, this was only a nine point ballgame. Then it came all came unglued.

Mayfield's interception was a head-scratcher, and the fumbles came as a result of constant pressure. Jedrick Wills Jr. and Jack Conklin were greatly missed.

It amazes me that Mayfield was one of the NFL's best through the last eight games of last season, and now he looks like he's a shell of his former self again. Maybe it's the shoulder. Maybe he misses Landry. Maybe it's the reinsertion of Odell Beckham Jr.

There's no way that Mayfield forgot how to play football. That guy is still in there somewhere. It's becoming increasingly visible that he needs his surroundings to be stable, and so do most quarterbacks. It's hard to look good without your RB1, RB2, WR1, OT1, OT2, and OT3.

Mayfield's shoulder is still attached, so he's going to try to play. They need to figure this offense out, though.

The Ugly: Everything Else

The honeymoon phase for Kevin Stefanski is certainly over.

Giving up a sack on fourth down for the fourth time this season is not a way to endear yourself to a fanbase. It feels like Stefanski's aggression could stem from a complete lack of faith in his defense, which has been a nightmare in four games this season.

The revamped defense looks like it needs a revamp. Joe Woods, once again, looks like he has a lot of questions to answer. I can't force myself to believe that guys like John Johnson III, Denzel Ward, and Troy Hill all magically forgot how to play defense.

Third and fourth downs have been maddening on both sides of the ball. On offense, you can't convert and on defense, you can't stop anyone from converting. Hard to win football games that way.

The Browns had a busy day in the MRI room. They'll be without Kareem Hunt and Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah for several weeks.

Right now, the Browns are 3-3. In 1989, the Browns were 3-3 when they went to the AFC Championship game. When the Buccaneers were 8-5 last season, nobody was singing Super Bowl praises.

There are 11 games left. But there's a lot of work that needs to be done.

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