First 8 games of the season review.

The Good:

Coaching overall. We are 5-3. We have a winning record for the first time in years. It’s a nice way to go into a bye week.

Mayfield seems to be turning the corner. If you look at yesterdays stats you’d say “12-25 for 122 yards? AWFUL. How’s that progression?” He had 6 perfectly placed balls flat out dropped including 2 3rd and longs and a touchdown. He should’ve been 18-25 at one point. I’m not including the 2nd TD “drop” by Landry in those numbers because it was an illegal hit that no one could hold. Helmet square in the upper shoulder blades/back. FYI, when a police officer wants your hands behind your back that’s where his knee is placed because your arms automatically spread apart by using force on that part of the back.

Mayfeild navigated the pocket really well yesterday as well. He seems to be learning.

Offensive line is holding up nicely.

Garrett has been a beast and Ward has been really solid.

The bad:

Injuries.

Hunt has been a major disappointment in the absence of Chubb. Only averaging 3.9 YPC. He is playing through injury.

Garrett. Injured yesterday and it showed on the line.

Loss of OBJ. Amazing talent, though Baker does seem to play better without him as he looks for the opening rather than the jersey name.

Hooper out. He’s 7 of 7 on contested catches.

Teller out. Overall he’s been amazing this year and it hurts our outside zone without him.

The ugly:

Sendejo. He’s easily the worst defender in the NFL. The players know it. On the non-TD catch by Raiders you could see the disgust in Wards reaction. When he thought it was a TD. He missed yet another tackle on 3rd and 18 that would’ve been 5 yards short of the line.

Linebackers. I hope Pluto is wrong and analytics doesn’t drive the LBer narrative in their time here. All good run stopping Ds have great LBers. Ours are flat out bad.

Ronnie Harrison’s hands. He’s dropped 2 pick 6’s this year including one yesterday.

Defensive line is awful other than Garrett. Pushed around like ragdolls.

3 losses. All 3 are AFC losses. We missed the playoffs at 10-6 in 2007 due to AFC losses. One was on a missed FG as time expires against the Raiders.

Overall:

I’m impressed and shocked we are 5-3. We have an outside playoff shot if Garrett, Hooper, Chubb and Teller emerge healthy from the bye. Chubb being the most important piece.

Hopefully we don’t Browns up the rest of the year like we did yesterday in a key match up against a sub par team.