Baker Mayfield and the Cleveland Browns already had their postseason dreams dashed, but they still wanted to go out with a bang rather than a whimper.

Unfortunately for Browns fans, there was a lot more banging being done by the Pittsburgh Steelers, as they nailed Mayfield with nine sacks in their Week 17 matchup. Four of those sacks came from T.J. Watt, who leads the NFL in that category with 21 on the season.

When asked about the high volume of sacks, particularly from Watt, the Browns QB made sure to point out a crucial mistake by his coaching staff.

Via Nate Ulrich of the Akron Beacon Journal:

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“Obviously their front’s pretty good. It has been for years,” Mayfield said on Zoom. “But when you’ve got T.J. Watt over there and we’re not giving our rookie tackle a whole lot of help, it’s not going to be good.”

Hudson is a fourth-round draft pick who started for just the third time in the NFL. Mayfield made it clear his intent was not to rip Hudson. Mayfield's point is the coaches should have known they needed to slide the protection toward Hudson and assign tight ends and running backs to double-team or chip Watt more often.

The results speak for themselves: the Browns dropped the ball with that coaching decision. When facing a defensive weapon of T.J. Watt's caliber, there needed to be much more done to stop him than just deploying a rookie to try and contain him.

But at the end of the day, the bigger blow to Baker Mayfield and the Browns was dealt even before the game started. After making it to the postseason for the first time in nearly two decades last year, they fell short of their goal to return this season.