Improving the Cleveland Browns offense without reinventing the wheel

As bad as it looks for the Cleveland Browns on offense, the answer isn't panicking and making wholesale changes. There are a few issues that have consistently dogged the Browns through three weeks that they can address without reinventing the wheel.

Short of recovery from injury, the Browns have who they have and while there are upgrades that need to be made, unless it's development within the roster, it's not happening until after the season. The offense can be effective without those upgrades. It might be limited in terms of its potential and make some matchups more difficult, but it can still be problematic for opponents.

First and foremost, the Browns need to avoid negative plays. An inexcusable amount of them are presnap due to penalties. Not being able to line up correctly in the NFL is embarrassingly amateurish.

After the snap, the running game is improving, but not where it can be. The passing game is struggling and much of that is on Baker Mayfield. Missing his landmarks on some of his drops, evacuating a league leading amount of clean pockets is kneecapping his protection and subjecting him to pressure that shouldn't be there. Mayfield needs to trust his protection, hit his landmarks and get the ball out on time,

The other issue that is dogging Mayfield is his unwillingness to get out of bad plays. He holds onto the ball too long, tries to extend a play far longer than he should and ends up getting sacked, which then makes the ensuing down far more difficult, both in terms of playcalling as well as execution.

It's easy to understand that Mayfield desperately wants to make plays and he's trying to enable his receivers to get open, because he can make outstanding throws down the field, but he's now trying to do too much. The reward has not been justifying the risk and so many of them are ending up as sacks, negative plays.

Mayfield needs to be willing to get out of a bad play when it's not there. Do no harm first, get to the next play. 2-and-10 as opposed to 2nd-and-17. 3rd-and-7 as opposed to 3rd-and-12.

Rather than just executing plays and keeping drives alive which can result in points, so often, it feels like Mayfield is trying to win the game on one play. That somehow throwing it away is akin to failure. Trying to meet the massive expectations put on him has him trying to look for homeruns when he needs singles or even just a sacrifice fly to get the run in.

When Mayfield gets the ball out on time in the quick passing game, his efficiency is excellent. When he doesn't, he is doing more harm than good. Mayfield needs to play within the scheme, get things back on track and take some opportunities and extend plays. Right now, defenses are taking away the deep shots and demanding the Browns sustain drives, because outside of a few notable examples, they aren't.

Kitchens needs to run the offense with his best personnel and be less focused on relying on particular formations that demand specific personnel, then putting lesser talent on the field to fill them. Pharaoh Brown is a reasonable special teams contributor, but he's not an NFL tight end that's ready to contribute on offense. Every play he's on the field, the Browns have better players on the sideline and the Browns need to put out their best 11 and draw up the offense accordingly.

Some of this is undoubtedly fueled by injuries. Not having David Njoku, Rashard Higgins and Antonio Callaway hurts and in some respects has created an all hands on deck situation, but it's not an excuse to put lesser talent on the field, especially since only one of those three currently counts against the roster. It's all the more reason to put the best 11 out there, because the pool of talent isn't as deep currently.