Browns show why they’re a legit playoff team, a nickname for Taysom Hill and more Week 13 NFL insider notes

The Cleveland Browns are going to the playoffs.

Yeah, maybe you said that before Sunday. Maybe you would have been right. But I did not trust the Browns heading into Sunday. I thought there was a very real chance the 8-3 Browns would miss the playoffs even after the NFL expanded the postseason to seven AFC teams.

But in the biggest show-me game of Baker Mayfield’s young career, the quarterback absolutely showed me—and the rest of the AFC—that the Browns will be playing in January in Cleveland’s 41-35 win against Tennessee.

Mayfield had a great four quarters in just a single half, going 20-for-25 for 290 yards and four touchdowns in the first half. One of his five incompletions was a dropped touchdown, by the way. He didn’t add much to that in the second half but he didn’t need to. He won the game already.

We can pick apart what the Browns didn’t do in the second half, but what does it matter? The goal is to win the game, and that’s what they did.

The 8-3 Browns came into this game 1-3 against quality opponents. They beat the Colts in Week 5, but lost to the Ravens, Steelers and Raiders by a combined 92-19.

It’s not that I thought the Browns are a bad team, but I figured this would be a close game. And which team are you gong to take in the fourth quarter? The one with Mayfield or the one with Derrick Henry that brutalized, out-muscled and out-physicaled the Colts and Ravens down the stretch in the past two weeks?

So the Browns flipped the script. Mayfield was absolutely surgical. He didn’t rely on his run game of Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt. Instead he went out there and slung it around to Donovan Peoples-Jones, Rashard Higgins and Jarvis Landry. He made a great catch on a pass from Landry. He carried out a perfect fake to freeze the defense and hit Peoples-Jones for a 75-yard touchdown. He found wide-open receivers throughout the first half thanks to a shoddy Titans defense and head coach Kevin Stefanski’s play calls.

Here’s what makes the Browns legitimate: they take care of business in the red zone. Going into Sunday the Browns had the seventh-best red-zone offense and ninth-best red zone defense.

At 9-3 the Browns now appear to be assured of their first double-digit-win season since 2007 and first playoff appearance since 2002. A win next week against the Ravens would lock both of those in, but Cleveland also has both the Giants and Jets in consecutive weeks afterward that should confirm their January plans.

A nickname for Saints’ Hill

“Swiss Army Knife” wasn’t a good enough nickname for Taysom Hill. I went to the great site Pro Football Reference to find his nickname and there wasn’t one. (Don’t forget that Tom Brady is apparently “The Pharaoh” and Patrick Mahomes is “The Magician.”) So I gave Hill a nickname.

This, of course, is said with all respect to Hill’s Mormon faith. He carved up the Falcons for 232 yards and two touchdowns on 27-of-37 passing, and he’s now 3-0 as a starter. He deserves a nickname.

Jets (barely) stay on track for No. 1 pick

The Jets tried their best to screw up their chances of getting Trevor Lawrence, but not even the Jets could stand in the way of the Jets.

I’ve written here many times, I’m still not convinced Lawrence winds up with the Jets even if they own the No. 1 pick in 2021, but it’s hard to see a path to New York not being in the top spot after Week 17.

Pace, Nagy won’t be with Bears much longer

I don’t know for sure if Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy will be fired tomorrow or in four weeks. But there’s no way they keep their jobs. A loss to a divisional opponent, while still in the playoff race, when that opponent is on an interim GM, is grounds for termination. Pace screwed up the quarterback position in 2017 and Nagy isn’t liked in that locker room. In a pandemic, the Bears should get a jump on things now since there are so many openings.