As I discussed in my previous post, the Baker/Beckham duo stank up the NFL so bad last year, Coach Stefanski had to develop a special “Baker & Beckham are Bums” scheme to reduce their roles. Instead of throwing incompletion after incompletion to Odell, Baker Mayfield’s new job was to hand the ball to Nick Chubb & Kareem Hunt, and throw short passes to his tight-ends, while Beckham’s new role was to get in the way of his cornerback as Nick Chubb steamed by.

It worked pretty well, and I congratulate Coach Stefanski on being able to work around such rotten players. But now that the OBJ “reality distortion field” is no longer warping Baker’s mind, he is free to go back to his 2018 self. We saw proof of this in the Cincinnati and Oakland games, so now it’s time for a new scheme where Baker gets to air it out a bit more. He’s earned it.

Also, now that Nick Chubb is back, I, and plenty of other fans, would love to see him and Kareem Hunt on the field at the same time. That’s just crazy exciting for fans. Commentators are raving about how wonderful it is to have Kareem “spelling” Chubb, but does Nick really get tired? Somehow, I doubt it. In fact, if you needed 25 carries a game, both Chubb & Kareem would be more than happy, and capable, of giving them to you. I don’t want to see either player doing the punishing work of a fullback, so why not have Kareem as your slot receiver?

No receiver on the Browns has more touchdown catches than Hunt (4) and he is way more reliable than OBJ ever was. Hunt has caught 72% of his targets compared to OBJ’s 53.5%. Defenses should be more afraid of Hunt than they were of OBJ. Throwing the ball to Hunt in the defensive backfield should keep defensive coordinators up at night. Hell, linebackers have trouble bringing down Hunt, let alone DBs.

One of the most eagerly anticipated developments of the preseason was how the new coach would use Chubb & Hunt. Then, when Stefanski announced that Hunt would be spelling Chubb, fans felt let down. They wanted both guns blazing, but instead were told that Chubb needs to nap between possessions. It came across as a terrible lack of creativity.

So, here’s a play: Landry is wide-out left, Higgins is wide-out right. There is one tight-end on the left. Chubb is in the backfield, Kareem is in the slot on the right. Chubb goes left, Baker fakes it to him, bootlegs right and throws a short pass to Hunt. Next play, same thing only Baker pump fakes to Kareem, and throws downfield to Landry or Higgins. Next play, same thing, only now the defense has gone to sleep on Chubb, and Baker hands it off to him. Next play, same thing only Baker stops short on his bootleg, and throws it back to the tight-end. Depending on the defense, Baker could choose any of these options.

So, there’s some ideas about how to use the team’s two super-star running backs simultaneously.

In case you were wondering, Rashard Higgins is the team’s most-reliable receiver, with OBJ being the worst. This is: “percent of targets caught”:

80.0% – Rashard Higgins
72.0% – Kareem Hunt
71.4% – Harrison Bryant
66.7% – Austin Hooper
66.0% – Jarvis Landry
61.5% – David Njoku
53.5% – Odell Beckham, Jr.

Honorable mentions:
Chubb only has 3 targets but he caught all of them.
DPJ is off to a good start, catching 3 of his 4 targets for 75%.