Browns’ Kevin Stefanski Agrees With Baker Mayfield That Ravens Should Have Been Put Away
Cleveland defeated Baltimore 24-22 on Sunday afternoon, but it should have never been that close. Browns once held a lead of 24-9 heading into the fourth quarter until the Ravens scored two straight touchdowns and then had a chance to win it.
Following the game Baker Mayfield said, “We got conservative. We need to put that team away.”
Mayfield is in fact right. We’re having a different conversation today if Jadeveon Clowney doesn’t get that sack and then Denzel Ward doesn’t make that tackle. Likely scenario was heading toward a Justin Tucker game winner at the end. We all know how those go.
Whether mayfield was pointing toward execution of the play calling or the play calling being too conservative, he’s right. Baltimore should have never been within striking distance - let alone a chance to win it.
“I also lamented that we didn’t put the game away,” Stefanski said during his Monday press conference. “I think missed a field goal to go up 27-9. On that third and 10, we would love to have converted there and get seven off that drive. That was a long fourth-quarter drive and we need to do more of that. It’s certainly something that we talk about internally where we can get better, offense, defense, special teams to put games away and that’s what we need to do.”
Luckily the Browns were able to escape with the win and now sit in second place when it comes to the AFC North standings. Cleveland currently holds the tiebreaker over Cincinnati, but still has to play them once more.
“The good news is, we put it away, got that win and that’s got to be our focus moving forward in these games. They’re all going to be close, a bunch of really good football teams and starting with the Raiders we’ve got to make sure we’re at our best,” Stefanski said.
Saturday the Raiders make the cross country trip. Las Vegas has just one win in their last six games, but still are competing for the playoffs. It will be another tough AFC matchup for the Browns.
Stefanski cleared up any confusion that there could be a feud in play calling perhaps.
“I talk to Baker every week, every day, so I think we’ve got a good line of communication, but I think we just all, coaches and players, as we move forward with all these big games, AFC opponent this week, focus is always going to be just on the same page and doing what we need to do to go get a victory.”
Winning solves everything in the NFL, or any sports league really. As long as the Browns can pile some wins here, nothing will matter. But, with the game against the Ravens slipping away there is right to some talk that the team needs to finish better.
Brandon Little is a writer for Sports Illustrated’s Browns Digest website and you can follow him on Twitter here. You can follow Browns Digest on Twitter as well here.
