Baker Mayfield Still Doesn't Get It (and Probably Never Will)
Bon voyage, chump! At least you understood consent.
Baker Mayfield, as Patrick Mayorn of The Outside Zone so eloquently stated, is not good enough to be this annoying. All the Browns needed from him last season was not to be the worst starting quarterback in the NFL and they would have made the playoffs.
That shouldn’t have been a hard ask for a former No. 1 overall pick. And he couldn’t even clear that bar.
It makes perfect sense, then, that Mayfield decided to break his silence on a podcast hosted by a former Georgetown/Duke baseball player turned influencer named “Mike Stud.”
Think about that last sentence for a second. When was the last time you heard of an NFL quarterback participating in something so ridiculous? The only possible answer might be Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers, who torched his Q-rating by spewing his anti-vax nonsense on an otherwise respectable broadcast on ESPN. At least he won a Super Bowl.
This is the type of question that makes you wonder what kind of team Mayfield has assembled around him. I’d posit the theory they are professional clowns if that same team hadn’t also somehow bamboozled Progressive Insurance into giving their client millions of dollars to be the face of its latest marketing campaign. I assume the executive that signed off on that deal has already been sacked.
“I really, truly honesty have no regrets of my time in Cleveland of what I tried to give that place,” Mayfield told the podcast. “True Clevelanders and true Browns fans know that, and that’s why I can walk away from the whole situation feeling like I did it.”
It’s amazing that Baker spent three years in Cleveland and suddenly became the arbiter on what constitutes “true” Clevelanders. What exactly is “it” that he is claiming to have did? He didn’t even show his face during the NBA All-Star Game because deep down he does not like the city.
The interview only got worse from there. “I wish I would love to show up to somebody’s cubicle and boo them and watch them crumble,” he said. Again, with zero awareness that any cubicle worker in America would pick him up on their way to work to do just that if they earned even half his salary. Does he think service and retail workers don’t suffer similar conditions for pennies on his dollar? Probably.
In the end, though, I’m the biggest clown of this circus for ever thinking there was a possibility of this man leading a cursed franchise like the Browns to an NFL championship.
It’s not like the red flags weren’t glaring in retrospect. They were right there in national profiles that included anecdotes that should have been a much bigger deal.
From Mina Kimes of espn.com in April 2019 [via Sean Stazin]:
The quarterback and his fiancée, who is from Nebraska, were introduced in 2017 by a mutual friend. At the time, Wilkinson was living in Los Angeles. She says she was wary of dating a "punk football player" and ignored Mayfield's advances for months: He repeatedly followed and unfollowed her on Instagram, trying to attract her attention. Finally, in late December, they exchanged messages. He begged her to meet him before the Rose Bowl, his final college football game. She reluctantly agreed to grab lunch.
"I was assuming he'd be the typical playboy athlete," says Wilkinson, who is four years older than Mayfield. Because the Rose Bowl was the next day, she thought they'd spend most of their date talking about the game. But it barely came up. Instead, she says, Mayfield spent their entire first date peppering her with questions about herself, her family, her plans for the future. The next day, after Oklahoma lost, ending its season, the quarterback texted Wilkinson and told her he was staying in LA. Three days later, he moved in with her and her brothers. Six months later, Emily and Baker were engaged.
Moving in with a romantic interest four days after your first date is insane. To add relatives to the mix—even more so. It’s suddenly not so hard to believe that story from the woman who claimed she sucked him off in the parking lot of a Cheesecake Factory. It’s the same M.O. he’s been using for years.
Remember that 14-year-old on Twitter who claimed he spent the night before the Browns–Packers game, the biggest game of the season to date, playing Call of Duty for hours with Mayfield? That story certainly gets more believable when you learn Mayfield was trolling for pussy on Instagram the day before the biggest game of his collegiate career. Naturally he did it in a way that amounts to stalking in the most passive-aggressive way possible, which is more his calling card than anything he’s done on the field at this point.
Of course Georgia put his dick in the dirt, and of course he stayed in Los Angeles instead of flying back to Norman with the team. He has always seen himself as a Super Star, which served him in college but doesn’t translate to the pros when you’re just another stiff off the street.
Mayfield is justified to feel salty the Browns replaced him with a guy who had 22 accusations of sexual misconduct against him. But that doesn’t change the fact he demanded a trade and not a single team came calling for his services to play the most critical position in the sport. Not even the Indianapolis Colts, which if you listen to the interview in full you will realize he clearly thought would be his evacuation portal from Cleveland.
He even takes a shot at the Browns locker room culture on his way out the door, saying he “hopes” the next locker room will understand the importance of doing things the right way. Again, he lacks the self awareness to realize that as the starting quarterback, he had more influence on that locker room culture than anybody.
But that’s Baker. He wants all of the positives of being a famous quarterback but can’t handle any of the negatives. Things go well for him on the field if the chains are moving on schedule, but we saw how he performs in conditions that are less than optimal.
I do not believe Mayfield to be a bad dude.But his latest appearance weeks after the season shows that he simply doesn’t understand what it takes to be a successful quarterback in the NFL. And I’m looking forward to never writing about him again. Hopefully we trade him to Siberia.
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Who is this hack of a writer?
Has he forgotten how bad the Browns were before Baker? Has he forgotten that Baker lead Cleveland to it's first playoff win since they returned to the league? That win was against Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh.