2022 Opponent Review: Cleveland Browns

As training camp approaches for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and with it the unofficial start to the season, we are taking a closer look at the opponents on the team’s 2022 schedule. Next up is the Cleveland Browns, who will be the Buccaneers opponent when they come back from their Week 11 bye. The Week 12 Bucs-Browns contest at FirstEnergy Stadium will kick off at 1:00 p.m. ET and will be broadcast by FOX.

Expectations for the Browns’ 2021 season were sky high after the team had broken a 17-season playoff drought in 2020 and then thrilled their fans in the playoffs with a 48-37 drubbing of archrival Pittsburgh. Third-year quarterback Baker Mayfield, the first pick in the 2018 draft, threw three touchdown passes in the win over the Steelers after finishing the regular season on a tear.

Instead, the 2021 campaign was a disappointment in Cleveland, ending without a repeat playoff berth and with the Browns and Mayfield headed for a divorce. The Browns still finished with the league’s fifth-best defense and the running game behind the powerful duo of Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt remained one of the league’s best, but the passing attack cratered and Mayfield was sacked 43 times in 14 games. That beating led to a left (non-throwing) shoulder injury that was likely instrumental in Mayfield’s second-half numbers being far worse than what he put up over the first six weeks of the season.

The Browns drew the Chiefs in Kansas City in Week One and nearly pulled off the upset before a late Travis Kelce touchdown gave the home team a 33-27 win. Cleveland than ripped off three straight wins over Houston, Chicago and Minnesota before dropping another road thriller, this one a 47-42 shootout with Justin Herbert and the Los Angeles Chargers. Over the next nine weeks the Browns would alternate wins and losses, the most notable decision a 41-16 blowout of the Super Bowl-bound Bengals in Week Nine, with Mayfield throwing two touchdown passes and Chubb running for two more. That game came…