The Cleveland Browns are Baker Mayfield's team. There is no denying that.

He came off the bench and took apart the Jets in the second half in his first NFL appearance to lead the franchise to its first win since 2016, and put up 40 points on the road in his first NFL start and ended Cleveland's rut of 36 straight losing Sundays by beating Baltimore in overtime in his first home start. He's done it with a unique style and flair and a reach beyond his years. There are going to be some hiccups along the way, but the kid continues to flash everything you could hope to see out of a rookie quarterback and inspires nothing but confidence and belief from his coaches and teammates.

Over the weekend Browns coordinator Todd Haley told me about how, after his receivers were dropping balls and making mistakes early in Mayfield's first start, at Oakland, the youngster took command of the sideline and called the veterans over and let them have it a bit and coached them up and then went out and scored on three straight drives. It was just a snippet of the way coaches are already willing to delegate to him at times, and teammates continue to galvanize around him. And that, combined with his playmaking ability on the field, has the Browns poised to be more of a factor in the AFC North than they've been in longer than most of us can remember.

"That reputation he had of being a real leader, and guys gravitating to him, that's real," Haley told me. "I saw it going all the way to our workout with him at Oklahoma."

Like many, Haley wondered if the mythology of Mayfield was getting a little overblown during the pre-draft process -- until he watched Mayfield in his own environment in the Sooners' offices and practice field. "He was walking to the indoor facility and before he even got in the building he's doing this little whistle," Haley explained. "And all the guys were already in there warming up for him to be ready to catch passes and they start calling back to him and letting him know they were ready before he'd even walked through the door."

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The Browns, like every other quarterback-needy team (and frankly many teams with proven, established passers did more work on him than they usually might) made their pilgrimage to Norman, Oklahoma to work Mayfield out. It's a grinding process and one that gets monotonous for his teammates, who are needed there to help facilitate the drills (especially those who aren't draft eligible themselves). But the Sooners were out in force through the offseason and eager to make their quarterback look as good as they possibly could.

"That day was really kind of impressive," Haley said, "and something I took note of. When you see that kind of relationship and subtle leadership, you just saw the connect those guys had with him and they would do anything for him, whatever he needed. He'd probably done it 15 time for all the individual workouts he did, and they were all there early and showed up on cue and were already loosened up when he got there. A lot of times at those workouts you are waiting for guys to get here and standing around and they don't start on it. I thought that was an important little thing, all the way back in the process. Just a sign of things to come."

Mayfield is already eliciting the same kind of response from the Browns. Given the depth this organization sunk to, it's hard not to get caught up in the hype and hysteria. Mayfield himself doesn't seem like one to get too caught up in it, however, and the future in Cleveland appears brighter than at any time since they re-entered the NFL as an expansion team.

"There hasn't been one time when I haven't had confidence in him," Haley said. "In the preseason, and in practice, it hasn't always been perfect, and I was as interested as anybody if the size limitations would be an issue with the bigger defenders, but it hasn't been, and there hasn't been one time that I haven't had confidence that he had a chance to make a play."

DC Al Holcomb keeping Cardinals in games

It's been a tough start for the Arizona Cardinals, who finally won a game in Week 5, but that shouldn't take away from the job being done by defensive coordinator Al Holcomb. The Cardinals have barely scored at all – they rank dead-last with 58 points scored (Buffalo is next-worst with 63) and dead-last in time of possession (23:53, with Miami ranking 31st at 26:40) – and get no help from the offense, but are hanging around in games due solely to the work of the defense.

Rookie head coach Steve Wilks was smart to delegate to Holcomb, and – despite having recent first-round picks like Deone Bucannon and Hasaan Reddick not fit the scheme and providing very little – this unit is exceeding what could be expected of them. Holcomb has been moving Patrick Peterson all over the place to negate match-ups, he has turned Josh Bynes into a difference-maker at linebacker, and since a tough start in the first two weeks the Cardinals are allowing just 18 points per game their past three weeks (again, despite being on the field the entire game).

Getting this group to stick together in a new regime after such a brutal start – outscored 58-6 in the first two weeks – is no small accomplishment

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