Alex Van Pelt traded Bengals orange and black for Browns orange and brown. (The Ahtletic)
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland.
Alex Van Pelt’s plan to pull Baker Mayfield’s game from the depths of the NFL quarterback rankings starts from the ground up.
“It all starts with the feet. The feet never lie,” Van Pelt said.
The Browns’ new offensive coordinator is a quarterback coach at heart. He won’t hold that additional title, but it was obvious listening to Van Pelt in his introductory press conference that fixing Mayfield’s game is Priority No. 1.
He played the position for 11 years in the NFL, mostly as a backup with the Buffalo Bills.
“Yes, my plan is to be the voice in the [quarterback] room,” Van Pelt said. “I think that is very important. One of my strengths as a coach is coaching the quarterback so I definitely want to make that part of my job responsibilities.”
“[The quarterback room] is where it starts. That is where the offense should be built is around the quarterback and how you make him successful. That is a very important room.”
Van Pelt’s early analysis of Mayfield includes all the positives we’ve heard before, and all the negatives obvious to even untrained eyes last season. And it didn’t take him long to conclude that Mayfield’s mechanics were flawed, starting with his footwork.
Dancing with the stars
“I want the feet to be like Mozart and not like Metallica, if that makes sense,” Van Pelt said. “Not to say that he is [messed up], but with the footwork, it is just the fluid motion moving back there in the pocket as you go through your progressions.”
Van Pelt already has communicated to Mayfield to practice leading his drop-back – even his stance in the shotgun – with his left foot forward.
“There are three different ways from the gun. You can [start] in a balanced stance, you can have your left foot up or your right foot up. Right now, he has his right foot up. I think we are going to switch it to left foot up and see how he likes that. To me, that allows a quarterback to play with more rhythm. It is quarterback junky talk, but it is something I believe in.
“It is my opinion it helps in the three-step game, the quick game. There is more rhythm and it is not as robotic. It is more fluid.”
This small, technical coaching point might come as a shock to Mayfield, who got too comfortable with buddies coddling him last year.
“I don’t need anyone to teach me how to do a three-step drop,” he scoffed at the outset of his second season.
Deep down, Mayfield realizes his game got out of whack last year. In truth, he craves good coaching. Van Pelt’s experience as an NFL player and coaching Aaron Rodgers, among others, may prove to be the best thing to happen to Mayfield since he got his wish and was drafted No. 1 overall by the Browns in 2018.
Kevin Stefanski is Mayfield’s fourth head coach in three years, Van Pelt his fourth offensive coordinator and – without the title – his fourth quarterback coach.
The system can be the solution
Mayfield’s greatest attribute at Oklahoma was his accuracy – roughly 70 percent completion percentage his three seasons under coach Lincoln Riley.
Van Pelt said 64 percent is “probably the benchmark” for an NFL quarterback. Mayfield was right there as a rookie (63.8) but slumped to 59.4 last year – 31st among starting quarterbacks.
Aside from fixing mechanics, reducing bad decisions, and improving chemistry with the receivers, the best hope for Mayfield regaining his accuracy is the offense being installed by Stefanski and Van Pelt. It’s essentially the same one in Minnesota that made Kirk Cousins a 69.1 percent passer (fourth in the NFL) last year.
“That is the starting point,” Van Pelt said. “It will start with the wide zone [running scheme] and the play-action pass and the movement to keep passes off of that will be a big part of what we do.
“If you are running the ball well with the guys that we have – we think we will be running the ball well – the play-action is a huge part of the game, explosive gains, completion percentages and everything that comes off of that. Play action will be a big part of what we do. It is something that I have always believed in. I was taught a long time ago by [former NFL coach and Sam Rutigliano assistant] Paul Hackett, who emphasized play action and the art of it or the lost art of it. I think it is something we will get back to.”
The elephant-in-the-room when discussing Browns offense is who will call plays.
Will Stefanski try to succeed where immediate predecessors Hue Jackson and Freddie Kitchens failed – handling the dual role of head coach and play-caller? Or will he entrust the duties to Van Pelt, a seasoned NFL coach but one with whom Stefanski has never worked?
Van Pelt called plays only one year – in 2006 after Bills coach Dick Jauron fired coordinator Turk Schonert following preseason turmoil and hastily promoted Van Pelt to the post.
“It is really something we are just going to work through,” Van Pelt said. “Not having worked with Kevin in the past, I am sure he needs a comfort level with me as a coordinator. As we work through it, at this point, we are just trying to put together the best offense for our guys. At that point when it becomes a decision of who calls it, I think we will all know each other a lot better and feel good about whichever decision. Right now, it is nothing I am getting caught up on.”
Some head coaches consider calling plays the fun part of the job. Some are smart enough and humble enough to admit it is a stressful chore that can complicate the more important task of game management.
We’ll find out what Stefanski thinks sometime in the preseason. He may not announce who’s calling plays until then.
In the meantime, fixing Mayfield’s game is the biggest contribution Van Pelt can make with his new team.