Week 9 Recap: Cleveland Browns vs. Kansas City Chiefs

The Cleveland Browns walk away from Week 9 with a loss against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.

Mahomes continues to add to his legendary success this season with 375 yards and three touchdowns in the teams win. Two of those touchdowns went to Cleveland native Travis Kelce who had seven receptions for 99 yards.

Browns head coach Gregg Williams reflected on Mahomes performance by saying, “Played well. We forced him into a couple of situations that we normally have been pretty productive on, but give him credit. He made some nice plays. He really did.”

Not only does Kelce have ties to the city of Cleveland but so does Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt. Hunt had two rushing touchdowns and one receiving for Kansas City. Kansas City’s offense has been quite impressive after entering this week averaging 36.3 points.
While the Kansas City Chiefs rise to an 8-1 record the Cleveland Browns fall to a 2-6-1 record.

Although the matchup between Baker Mayfield and Patrick Mahomes wasn’t like the college matchup in 2016, where they combined for over 1,700 yards. However, the performance by the Chiefs didn’t go unnoticed after recording 499 total yards because of an impressive 8.6 yards per play.

Williams knew this would be a tough matchup and playing aggressive would be a key aspect in success. The Browns offense attempted three two-point conversions but were unable to convert one during the team’s loss. Also, the Browns were quite successful on fourth down conversions going 2-for-3 during the game.

Williams commented about the team playing aggressively in offensive situations by saying, “It was good to see our team respond. We wanted to see our team respond and wanted to see (QB) Baker (Mayfield) respond, and he did a really good job with that and how he lead us in those situations. He did a good job.”

Offensively, rookie quarterback Baker Mayfield threw two passing touchdowns to running back Duke Johnson and was able to finish the game with 297 yards and one interception. The Browns were excellent with controlling the clock in the first half after holding the Chiefs offense to just over 11 minutes on offense.

However, the defense turned into a different story after the team lost E.J. Gaines (concussion) and Denzel Ward (hip) were injured in the first half and Damarious Randall (groin) was on the injury report prior to the game.

Even though the Browns lost their fourth straight game, the team looked much better under interim coach Williams that it did under Hue Jackson. Jackson was recently fired after going 3-36-1 in just over two seasons with the team.

Robert Wykowski is a Cleveland Browns writer for Full Press Coverage. So follow him on twitter @WykowskiRobert