I have to give attention to the defense. How they opened the game is how they played all game and I thought this first 3rd down was a foreshadowing of what was to come. All encompassed in one play.
3rd & 13
Red clears out for Yellow's (13, OBJ) Dig to work the area. The 49ers are playing some sort of combo coverage, and it's going to look really odd, but I think it's a variation of Cover3.
Mayfield drops back and looks left. This might be an inside out read (orange to yellow).
Timing wise, he wants to start his throwing motion right now. But Buckner flashes in front of his face and gets his long arms up. Warner does a good job quickly gaining depth and clogging up the strongside Hook where orange wants to work.
Buckner and AA get incredible push up the middle. For a QB that isn't tall, this feels very constricting.
This is why I think it's a variation of Cover3 (blues are deep, oranges are underneath). The safety that drops down is often to the weakside Hook zone. That safety often looks to match any kind of crosser from the #3, which is what I think Tartt is doing.
The 49ers are playing man coverage to the weakside with Sherman on a TE, and Kwon on the RB.
So it's it's a combo coverage to each side of the field. The deep middle safety (Ward) will always shade to the trips WR side, which is what he's doing here, and why Ward doesn't look like a deep middle safety, but he is.
OBJ does have an open area, but Mayfield has bailed out of the pocket, which is his fallback instinct when he senses trouble whether real or not.
Landry (80) had a step on Tartt underneath, but Mayfield goes for the high difficulty throw to the TE over Sherman.
CLE repeatedly would ask Mayfield to dropback, survey the field, and find his target. We all saw the trouble he had in the pocket, yet CLE did little to help him with short rhythm throws. The majority of their pass plays where 5/7 step where Mayfield would hit the top of his drop, sense pressure, panic, and the timing of the play was gone.
This was a 3rd & 13 so CLE was forced to dial up some routes to get downfield, but it was a reoccurring theme how often they asked Mayfield to make throws from the pocket when the pocket rarely held up due to the pass rush.