Making early bold predictions for the Cleveland Browns in the 2020 season.
No one could stop the Cleveland Browns heading into last season — or at least that’s the way it seemed. With quarterback Baker Mayfield entering his second year after a phenomenal rookie campaign and adding Odell Beckham Jr. to an offense that already boasted the likes of Nick Chubb and Jarvis Landry, the Dawg Pound appeared that they were in for a treat.
As we all know, the reality was much different for Cleveland than the expectations. Whether it was Freddie Kitchens’ shortcomings as head coach, the offensive line’s abysmal performance or incidents like Myles Garrett swinging his helmet at an opponent’s head, the Browns were the living embodiment of Murphy’s Law.
Kevin Stefanski, formerly of the Vikings, has replaced Kitchens, the offensive line has been improved drastically and holes have been plugged. Yet, it feels like everyone is hesitant to believe in this team due to getting burned a season ago.
Let’s blow that out of the water, though. With training camp just a few weeks away, we’re making some early bold predictions for the Cleveland Browns in the 2020 NFL season.
Browns early bold prediction No. 5: Run defense is league average
To put it plainly, running on Cleveland’s defense was not a difficult task last season. Despite the talent on the defensive line, Kitchens’ club struggled mightily to consistently stifle opposing rushing attacks.
In 2019, the Browns ranked 30th in rushing defense, allowing opponents to run for 5.0 yards per carry over the course of the season. So it’s no surprise that they also had the fifth-most rushing attempts against them in the NFL. Teams knew they could have success handing the ball off, so that’s what they elected to do quite often.
While the organization let Joe Schobert walk and there are questions about the young linebacker group, the Browns should have a better shot against the run. With an improved offense, they may see fewer rushing attacks take advantage. Meanwhile, the addition of veteran Andrew Billings at defensive tackle should help tremendously as well.
Though it may not seem that bold, Cleveland finishing as a league-average run defense in the 2020 season would be huge for this team. That’s an improvement of over 10 spots from where they were in 2019, which is the type of turnaround this team needs to see.
Browns early bold prediction No. 4: Chubb wins the NFL rushing title
Despite the immense shortcomings of the offensive line in 2019 and how that negatively affected Baker Mayfield and the passing offense, it didn’t slow down running back Nick Chubb. In his second NFL season and even with the presence of Kareem Hunt on the roster, the Georgia product became the bell cow back and showed just how talented he is.
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With 298 carries on the season, Chubb finished the year with 1,494 yards and eight touchdowns, averaging 5.0 yards per carry. He also added a nice 36 receptions (49 targets) with 278 yards as well. He finished second in the league in terms of rushing yards, trailing only Derrick Henry. For the 2020 season, though, Chubb is going to surpass his peer in Tennessee and emerge as the league’s rushing champ.
The talent of Chubb is undeniable at this point, averaging over 5.0 yards per carry for his two seasons in the league. Furthermore, he’s proven that he can make it happen no matter the situation after what he dealt with last season. But the best news for Chubb is that his situation in Cleveland has now drastically improved.
Cleveland’s front office put a focused effort on improving the offensive line this offseason, most notably adding tackles Jack Conklin and Jedrick Wills Jr. in free agency and the draft, respectively. With that and a coach in Stefanski who thrives off of establishing the run, Chubb should get his heaviest workload yet and take the league by storm in the process.
Browns early bold prediction No. 3: Garrett leads NFL in sacks
Just to get this out of the way, there is no excuse for what Myles Garrett did that resulted in his 2019 season ending prematurely due to suspension. There’s no way you can swing a helmet at an opposing player, no matter what happens. Hopefully, the 2017 first overall draft pick can learn from his errors and grow as a player and person from that incident.
The reason that’s the hope is that Garrett is a phenomenal talent. While some criticized the athletic freak for not being as productive as he should’ve been while in college at Texas A&M, he has started to realize his talent over the past two seasons. Over his past 26 games in the NFL, Garrett has 23.5 sacks, 23 tackles for loss and five forced fumbles. Suffice it to say that he’s made a habit of getting into the opposing backfield.
Without question, the Browns are hoping to get 16 games from Garrett again but are also hoping that Olivier Vernon, the defensive end who was acquired as part of the OBJ trade, will be able to stay on the field as well. And if that happens, there might not be any hope of stopping Garrett with any kind of consistency for opposing offenses.
Last season, Garrett was averaged one sack per game before his untimely suspension. If the defensive end, who is just 24 years old still, can take another step forward, it’s not hard to see him bettering that pace and approaching 20 sacks in the 2020 season. If he does that, he should be in the running to lead the NFL in that category.
Browns early bold prediction No. 2: Baker bounces back in a huge way
As far as individuals go, you can make the case that no single NFL player was as disappointing last season than quarterback Baker Mayfield. The No. 1 overall pick from 2018 performed sensationally when given the keys as a rookie. In 14 games and 13 starts, he completed 63.8 percent of his passes for 3,725 yards, 27 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. He looked every bit like the goods.
Subsequently, expectations were incredibly high for his sophomore campaign. And he became the poster child for what went wrong with the Browns last year. As the O-line couldn’t contain, Mayfield became panicky and struggled with his accuracy and decision-making, two of the hallmarks of his game coming out of Oklahoma.
Overall, Mayfield finished his 2019 season completing only 59.4 percent of his passes with 22 touchdowns and 21 interceptions. His yards per game also dropped by 26.9 as well.
After that down year, there are questions abound with Mayfield and his viability as the long-term quarterback in Cleveland. But the weapons are still there, the offensive line has been largely fixed and he even has more options as well with the addition of Austin Hooper.
To me, this feels like a monster bounce-back season. Mayfield is going to have some interceptions always in his career because he’s not afraid of risks. However, he’s going to be more reliable, productive and efficient. For prediction’s sake, he’ll finish with a 65 percent completion rate, roughly 4,500 yards, 30 or more touchdowns and around 15 interceptions. All of that is a huge leap in the right direction.
Browns early bold prediction No. 1: Cleveland wins 11 games, makes playoffs
Full disclosure, I was one of the fools who got taken to the cleaners by the Cleveland Browns in the 2019 season. Everything they were selling seemed like a worthwhile purchase to me, so I bought it. And as we’ve said, I was one of the many people who got burned by the 6-10 performance that this team put forth, falling miles short of expectations.
And I’m fully prepared to get burned again — because I believe that the hype was simply just a year early on the Browns.
There is no one that can respectfully deny the talent on this roster. On both sides of the ball, Cleveland has playmakers who are capable of changing games in an instant and they are numerous as well. All this team needs to reach their potential is to find stability and the right gameplan for them, especially after they addressed their most glaring weakness with the additions of Conklin and Wills.
Stefanski is the answer. What he showed in Minnesota was a reliance on the run to set up play-action and using his tight ends. The Browns have the perfect personnel group to execute that style of play with aplomb.
Yes, the AFC North is tough, which is why I’m not ready to say that Cleveland can topple the Baltimore Ravens in the division. For my money, though, this is a better team than Pittsburgh and a team that should be disappointed with anything below double-digit wins and a secure postseason berth.