What Baker Mayfield And Nick Chubb’s Recent Comments Say About Where The Browns Are Headed

This week, both Baker Mayfield and Nick Chubb made statements about the 2019 Browns, what went wrong with that team and what changes are coming in 2020.

“I said it before, I think we thought we were a lot better than we were,” Chubb said on The Jim Rome Show .”We thought it was going to just happen for us, we didn’t actually put the work in. We got this guy, and this guy, you know we’re straight, so we don’t need to actually work, it’s going to happen for us.”

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work. I think that’s exactly what it was with us. We had all the talent in the world, but didn’t put the work into it.”

“Every interaction I’ve had with Kevin [Stefanski] has been great,’’ Mayfield said during an interview on Thursday when the Browns’ schedule was released, per cleveland.com. “He’s climbed the ladder very quickly because he’s very well-respected and he’s an extremely sharp guy. He knows what he’s doing. He knows the exact approach that he wants to attack with and he just does that.’’

Chubb, as arguably the Browns’ best player last year, and Mayfield, as the Browns’ most important player, speaking carries weight. If Cleveland is going to compete in 2020 and make the 2019 6-10 disaster merely a hiccup, both are going to need to thrive. That’s, of course, stating the obvious.

What their recent comments signal is that the intention is for last year to be a one-off thing. Chubb, who is usually quiet with the media, saying the team didn’t put in the work is extremely telling. It’s also another indictment on Freddie Kitchens as a head coach. And someone as reserved as Chubb saying this carries some extra weight. Unlike other players on the Browns, he had no public dispute with Kitchens and hasn’t said much about last season.

As for Mayfield, who thrived in Kitchens’ offense his rookie year and supported Kitchens’ campaign for head coach, what his says about Stefanski signals something very simple: the Browns under Kitchens didn’t know what they wanted to be. The tape reveals that — the offense last year vs. the year prior were worlds apart effectiveness and scheme wise. Everything was disjointed to a point where it could never come together. Part of the appeal of Stefanski is that that won’t be the case.

The coaching change, and really the Browns’ expected success, is on Mayfield more than anyone else. He’s the team’s quarterback, the epicenter of everything the team does. That’s how this works and the Stefanski-Mayfield partnership has to work if Cleveland is going to be any good next season. Notably, Stefanski will be the fourth coach Mayfield has had in three years, although that says more about the Browns as a franchise than it does Mayfield as a franchise pillar.

Now, Cleveland still has to go out and improve next year. As Mayfield noted in his interview, this is the time of the year where the Browns would start implementing the playbook and getting the team on the same page. The coronavirus impeded offseason will probably extend the learning curve for the entire team heading into next year. But at the very least, it seems like the Browns know what needs to change for 2020 to be the success 2019 was not. To quote Chubb, the Browns have to put the work in.