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Hue Jackson's heart was in the right place; he could have just said it differently.
On Thursday night, in his first win since Christmas Eve 2016, the Browns head coach asked if Baker Mayfield's return to the Jets meant Mayfield would be the starting quarterback. He could have said something like, "Tonight is not night. Tyrod Taylor has a concussion protocol and we have 10 days before our next match. We will discuss it in due course.
After the Browns' first win since the end of the 2016 season, we are looking at other notable teams to end the slides.
Browns fans were buzzing about the death of the series and the birth of a new star in Cleveland. Here is an overview of some of the reactions around social media.
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Instead, Jackson said, "I'd like to watch the band," what football coaches say when they obviously do not want to answer a question. And since his record of 2-32-1 as a Cleveland coach, Jackson is one of the easiest targets for ridicule in the NFL.
Because, Hue, the band shows the Browns winning a match, man! There is only one other band like this for your entire coaching contract at Browns. And the idea that you will not try to repeat every single thing that went into Thursday night's game, including making Mayfield the quarterback, is crazy.
There is no turning back now. Mayfield must be the Browns starter when they play Oakland one week from Sunday, and you do not need to look in your movie All-22 coaches to understand this.
Of course, it's bad news for Taylor, whose starry career seems to be still jostled. We all hope that losing her job in Mayfield is the worst of Taylor's third concussion in 13 months, and no one is trying to downplay the circumstances that led Mayfield to resume Thursday night's game. But the final result was a breathtaking start to the season with No. 1 pick in the repechage, and a team and city that must do their best on Mayfield from now on.
And that means no matter what. It's important for all of us, especially for Browns fans, to understand that it will not be all the return of free beer and the fourth quarter. Mayfield is a 23-year-old rookie who has still not played at a full NFL game. He will have bad games, maybe even ugly ones. The Jets and their fans were flying high after Sam Darnold made his debut on Monday night, and it was only 10 days later in Cleveland that Darnold looked like a rookie overwhelmed at the Mayfield night out.
Thursday night does not mean that Darnold can not play or that the Jets should return to Josh McCown, nor that Mayfield is on an express elevator in Canton. Every rookie in the league is a work in progress, vulnerable to mistakes and bad decisions. When Mayfield will inevitably have the kind of game that Darnold had on Thursday, that does not mean it's time to get back to Taylor or some other option.
No, the Browns must do their best on Mayfield from now on, even if he has some work to do. Because what happened Thursday night in Cleveland was a turning point. Browns fans would have been delighted if Taylor had delivered his first victory in 21 months. Heck, they would have been delighted if they had stolen each possession and won the match 2-0 with a safety of Myles Garrett. It was a base of emotionally emaciated fans, desperate for a feeling that they could barely remember.
But for that to happen like this? A 14-point comeback behind Heisman's promising all-time winner, who has all his hopes and dreams for the future of the franchise? Oh, it's quite different. That's more than Browns fans have dared to think that they deserved when they entered this stadium on Thursday night. There is no taking Mayfield away from them now. They saw too much.
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They saw that it was hyper accurate, which we knew from his college years.
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They saw that he quickly gets rid of the ball, slips it into tight windows, keeps his eyes down when the protection breaks down and does not seem to run if his first reading is not open.
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They saw it converting third downs to keep the records alive at critical moments of the game. They saw it publish a total QBR of 95.4, making it the first QB Brown with a Total QBR of at least 90.0 since Derek Anderson in 2007 (minimum 20 passes, via ESPN Stats & Information).
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They saw that he was not bothered by many things, including having to take over the second quarter of week 3 after working with the second team all summer.
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They heard him calmly talking about his teammates during postgame interviews that were arranged to please him.
Above all, they saw him win. And winning this game Thursday night with Mayfield meant more than that would have meant with Taylor or DeShone Kizer or Robert Griffin III (who, incidentally, was the last Browns QB to win a match before Mayfield). This is not an offense for any of these guys, but what Mayfield stands for Cleveland Browns fans is a hope in a place where little else has been able to develop. It's almost so obvious that it's not necessary to say it, but there's no way to get rid of it now. This "ribbon" that Jackson has already seen as you read this will tell him that Mayfield is the man in Cleveland, for better or for worse.
And if Thursday is an indication, it should be a fun ride.
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