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INGLEWOOD, Calif .– Baker Mayfield came back from his hellish week with a classic shootout against Justin Herbert, but in the end the young QB had the best of the Browns in a 47-42 victory.
It was a wild and exciting showdown between two good, young quarterbacks, one who set the rookie touchdown record in 2018 with 27, and the other who beat him in 2020 with 31.
They went back and forth in one of the most scintillating fourth quarterfinals in NFL history, with six touchdowns scored in the final quarter.
Unfortunately for Mayfield and the Browns, he was ultimately unable to pull through to bail out an exhausted defense and return the favor for their excellent game last week at Minnesota, but he undoubtedly silenced a lot of his criticism bouncing back. from his clunker in Minnesota.
The Browns fell to 3-2 and the Chargers improved to 4-1.
Mayfield completed 23 of 32 yards for 305 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions for a score of 122.7.
Herbert completed 26 of 43 attempts for 398 yards with four touchdown passes and no interceptions for a rating of 122.0. He also ran for a TD.
It’s a game that will be remembered for a long time, and the two teams could end up in the playoffs. Everyone left this one completely exhausted, but the Browns have the long, long journey home unsatisfied.
Mayfield, returning from his horrific game which had besieged him by media and fans, took over at his 25th with 1:31 to go and no time outs, and needed a touchdown to win. This was not the case, as two deep balls from Rashard Higgins fell incomplete, the last in the end zone with 5 seconds left.
But Mayfield, playing with the harness over his left shoulder to protect his partially torn labrum, proved something to the many detractors who wrote him off after Minnesota’s ugly performance. He has shown he can engage in a shootout with one of the NFL’s most high-profile quarterbacks and almost score a huge road victory.
He also had a lot of help from his friends:
- Tight end David Njoku had the game of his career with 7×7 targets for 149 yards and a catch and run of 71 yards for a touchdown.
- Nick Chubb ran 21 times for 161 yards and a 52-yard touchdown, and Kareem Hunt rushed for 61 yards and two touchdowns.
- Rashard Higgins caught a 7-yard touchdown.
Odell Beckham Jr., who caught 2 of 3 targets for 20 yards and made a big drop. After the game, Beckham sat alone on the bench for a while. The 20-yard performance followed a 2 of 7 goal for a 27-yard outing last week at Minnesota. He now has seven performances of 29 yards or less in his 26 games in a Browns uniform, so the two will have to keep working on their chemistry.
But Mayfield, who was without his starting left tackle in Jedrick Wills Jr. and had Blake Hance protecting his blind side instead, came out strong and wasted no time trying to put his brutal week behind him.
In the first half, he completed 11 of 14 attempts for 155 yards and a touchdown for a 136.6 score. For comparison, 155 passing yards is his 14-7 victory tally over the Vikings.
He found Njoku for a 20-yard strike when opening the basket and stayed warm throughout the half.
On his second possession, he hit Njoku again for a 31-yard catch-and-run on a screen in the drive-opening play, then found Higgins all alone at the right pylons for the easy 7-way TD. yards which put the Browns up 10-7 with 12:46 left to play at the half.
Njoku and Higgins are two of Mayfield’s proven targets and they have helped him immensely. After the Higgins’ TD, Mayfield was 5-for-5 for 81 yards with the TD at 158.3.
He clinched gold again in the opening play of his third practice, netting an intermediate pass to Donovan Peoples-Jones at the Browns’ 35 and watching him turn that into a 42-yard gain. Unfortunately for Mayfield, an open Beckham dropped a short pass to the left flat in the fourth and 2 of 17 that could have gone for a TD.
It was a crucial mistake after a game in which the two were not on the same page last week, especially on a third pivot and 5 at the end of the 14-7 victory over the Vikings.
But Mayfield, playing with his usual moxie and backed up by a robust running game, came back and scored 10 points on the board in the final 54 seconds of halftime: a 3-yard Kareem Hunt TD shot that got him. scored 17-13, and then a 31-yard field goal by Chase McLaughlin as time came to an end in the half. The field placement came after Greedy Williams, who had the clutch intercept last week at Minnesota, forced Austin Ekeler to fumble. Malik McDowell, just back in the game from a rib injury, recovered at 22 for the Chargers.
Mayfield, who is sneaky mobile, also pulled away from Joey Bosa on the route to Hunt TD for a 7-yard run to the sideline in second and long distance, escaping the ankle tackle attempt of Bosa.
It was a loss for Mayfield, but in many ways it was also a victory for him.
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