At “Home” With Baker Mayfield
I am posting this comic Monday night, so there’s a decent chance Baker has a team by the time you read this Wednesday morning. I can never accurately plan for how the news flows. With both the 49ers and Ravens possibly needing a short-term starter, I wouldn’t be surprised if he shows up at either.
But let’s talk about Baker for a bit regardless of where he ends up or already ended up. This is a pretty big fall for the guy who briefly seemed like he might have finally been the guy the Browns were looking for all along.
Baker was a surprising late surge in the 2018 NFL draft. For most of that draft cycle, Baker seemed like the #3 or #4 option. Despite Baker being the Heisman trophy winner, Darnold was seen as the top QB prospect, with Josh Rosen as his main competitor. Allen was all over the place, and Lamar was unfairly overlooked. But seemingly out of the blue with little time left Mayfield was suddenly the guy in all the rumors and sure enough, the Browns picked him. We know the rest. Darnold busted out hard. Rosen ended up one of the worst prospects in a decade. Allen went to a good spot and developed into a star. Lamar immediately made an impact. Mayfield was the oddball of the crew, a player that seemed to neither bust nor boom.
He had a brash, bold, dickish attitude, which tends to endear you to a fanbase (if you are good) or make you public enemy number 1 (if you are bad). Mayfield got stuck on the “Process” Browns but quickly turned them around and played great his rookie year after Hue Jackson finally had nobody left to throw under the bus coming straight for him. Then the Browns made a terrible mistake and wasted the next year of Baker’s life by making him play for Freddie Kitchens, head coach. His second year in a new system did not work well. The Browns course corrected and seemed to make a good decision: Kevin Stefanski. The Browns took off.
Looking back it’s hard to not realize that Browns team was stacked and all Baker really had to do was not fuck up during the very weird COVID year. For the most part, he didn’t, and the Browns did the unthinkable: they won a playoff football game. But Baker finally looked to have a steady foundation under him and presumably things could improve from here. I retired the Hydra. The Browns were finally doing it. They were becoming respectable. Those devious gaslighters got us.
2021 was a disaster and I think the season permanently broke Baker. He looked bad, especially when OBJ drama caused a fuss and the team tore in two. After Beckham left, the Baker apologists ran out of excuses for his poor play until it was revealed Baker had a torn labrum. The entire season felt like a missed opportunity full of drama and we hadn’t even hit the real drama yet. Out of nowhere, the Browns shell out for the Rapist, and Baker is left in limbo. While Baker was indeed playing badly at the time, and arguments could be made the team should consider moving on and that Watson was unquestionably an upgrade, this was still a huge slap in the face to the organization Baker had gleefully served. He got done dirty, and I don’t blame him at all for forcing his way out.
I had hope for him on the Panthers. Not a lot, but if Baker could stay healthy maybe he could at least keep the job. The Panthers, however, were not a great team to bounce back on. The Rhule experiment was a failure and the team rotated between Baker, fellow cast-off Sam Darnold, and XFL legend PJ Walker. Walker ended up being the best of the bunch. Baker asked to be released and on Monday the team obliged. So now here we are.
Is Baker toast? I like to hope not and I always want to see guys succeed if they aren’t a rapist or named Tom Brady. Hate Baker’s attitude if you want, he seems like a douche, but he was also stuck in a mess for most of his career thus far and in his most stable year, won a playoff game. Daniel Jones, who he once publicly criticized, has an argument that he’s had a more stable situation in his career over Baker. At this point, Baker feels like a guy headed for a long career as a backup if he manages to stay healthy. Maybe he and Josh Rosen can get together over dinner and reminisce about when people thought they’d be good. Sam Darnold can join as soon as he’s cut too.
EDIT: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA THE MOTHERFUCKER BEAT THE RAIDERS ON LESS THAN 2 DAYS AS A RAM HAHAHAHAHAHAHA BAKER YOU LEGEND
The Rams.
Hahahahahaha.
I am a Chargers fan, and will take what enjoyment I find.
I was really hoping Baker Mayfield would have a career year, if for nothing else than to make the Browns look awful for trading for the most prolific sex offender in NFL history.
I’m so conflicted. On the one hand, Mayfield is a giant poop bag, and he deserves as much humbling as this world is able to offer him. His attitude is grating and all of those &@$ing commercials were so annoying.
On the other hand, the Browns despicably have made it impossible for me to outright hate him, because they are a much much bigger bag of poop. One that’s leaking in your car, and then you don’t realize it’s dripping out, and you bring it upstairs, and suddenly all of your floors are ruined.
If the Browns could just keep getting NOTHING out of their qb, while Baker wins a few games for the Rams with very little of his own contribution, that would be the best. Like, maybe 100% of their offensive output would be rushing yards.
It’s a bit of a reach, but there’s not much of a safety net under Tua right now…
>I always want to see guys succeed if they aren’t a rapist or named Tom Brady
What a coincidence – I always want to see guys succeed if they aren’t a rapist or named Manning!
There is some overlap is the rape and Manning circles.
>I always want to see guys succeed if they aren’t a rapist or named Tom Brady
What a coincidence – I always want to see guys succeed if they aren’t a rapist or named Manning!
I thought the panthers where gonna be a playoff team as soon as I heard the trade they got turns out sam darnold for once was the answer poor baker at least he is in sunny la
this is cool thing
Still better than living in Cleveland.
I think Baker has great camera presence in his commercials and as such I’ve been rooting for him to fail out of the league and do movies instead for a while now.
Same here. If a player is going to get overexposed in ads and whatnot all I ask is that they at least have some comedy chops, which he does.
To a lesser extent so does Gronk. He just needs better material to work with than those one-note USAA ads.
>He just needs better material to work with than those one-note USAA ads.
No freakin’ question there.
I am a baker apologist, and I think something that is incredibly overlooked is one particular period in cleveland: The time between when OBJ left and when he got hurt. His QBR was like top 5 in the league iirc, and there were plenty of rumors/”reports” about how OBJ liked to freelance and that’s why he didn’t have great chemistry with baker. I think those rumors had merit, because once OBJ left Baker took off with jarvis landry and the rest. Unfortunately, he got hurt several weeks later and from there you know the rest. But I think that period of time gave us a glimpse of who he could be and is unfairly overlooked in the whole narrative.
Unfortunately, I am also a panthers fan, and he despite the so-so cast around him and terrible coaching, did not really do himself any favors here. Balls were getting tipped all the time, he wouldn’t throw downfield (By design or not I don’t really know, our only good WR was moore), he was fumbling snaps. I think the panthers were just not a good fit, and while I do think he’s a good, average at least qb even still, I think he is the kind that needs the right system. The browns were that, the panthers and probably rams are not. I would be surprised if he revives his career after this, his carolina stint has done too much damage for another team to give him a starting shot out of anything other than desperation.
Also, I think the douche thing is overblown. He was a douche in college, but I think the flag planting thing really stuck with him past its expiration date, I don’t think he ever really lived that down. He was nothing but professional in cleveland and carolina, every account I heard esp in carolina was about how supportive he was of the team even when not playing (Headbutting without a helmet anyone?). Like, are we really saying the browns claims of “Wanting an adult at QB” is worth pegging baker as a douche over? We obviously know we can’t take them seriously on anything with who they replaced him with.
I’d like to give your suggestions the benefit of the doubt, but I really don’t see how you can say he was “nothing but professional in Cleveland.” He publicly called out teammates trying to negotiate contracts. Whether he intended it to be aired or not, he crapped all over Daniel Jones in the smarmiest way possible. He frequently aired his laundry on social media, with his wife was getting into the mix. He called out the fans at one point, and IIRC, he told the media at one point that *HE* was the one who would decide if he was going to play or not, not his coach or trainers. He was nothing BUT douchey in Cleveland.
Now, was he professional in Carolina? Yea, you could probably say so, other than the helmetless headbutts, which if you gave me 5000 words to describe them, I do not think I would ever include “supportive.” That’s called “I’m desperate for good press, and maybe I can show everyone what a tough guy I am by giving myself a concussion.” Not since Gus Frerotte’s infamous wall headbutt have I seen someone so desperate to give themselves brain damage.
And don’t get me wrong, I completely understand how you could overlook these things if you WANT to like him. We all do that for players we like; we overlook the little things that people who don’t like them get turned off by. But I think most people who approached his career neutrally were rightfully turned off by his behavior AFTER joining the NFL. His facial expressions are douchey. His emotional tirades are douchey. His “I’m angry that someone cast shade on me and now I’m feeling dangerous!” quips were douchey. The commercials were douchey. I could go on here if I wanted to spend time googling, and I emphatically do not wish to do that, lol. And this is coming from someone who hates OBJ, too. So I can ALMOST side with him getting thrown under the bus by OBJ via his dad.
And I don’t know the stats offhand, but Shannon Sharpe brings it up every time Skip Brainless tries to jump on Baker’s Maypole. But it can be summarized as, “In games where the Browns didn’t have 100 yards on the ground, Baker’s stats were TRASH.” And I believe that included the 11 magical games where OBJ was gone and he had decent stats.
If by the “calling out teammates” you’re referring to the duke johnson stuff, I don’t really disagree with how he handled that. Duke went public with his demands, no one else should be beholden to keep their feelings private after that. I am usually of the mindset that “If you worry that you won’t start, don’t go there.” Which is what duke did, he signed the deal, and didn’t want to fulfill it once the team realized the other backs were better than him and benched him. I don’t support moves like that, if he has an issue then he should play better.
I will never be upset at someone for calling fans out because fans are idiots. Another personal ideal of mine I know but the fans don’t care about the players. Why should players do the reverse? I don’t think there’s anything wrong with criticizing fans in sports.
The injury stuff, he did not specifically say the coaches or trainers in that from what I am seeing, he was coming at it from an angle of “If the general public tries to tell me I should sit, they’re stupid” which is true although dangerous, so I get taking an issue with that anyway. But he at least did not say something like “The coaches can’t tell me Ican’t play” or something.
I will concede on the other stuff, the daniel jones stuff was dumb and bad and intending it to be private doesn’t make it better. I don’t remember what twitter stuff you’re talking about but family getting in on it is always lame. But those are really the only things of the stuff you listed that I would call douchey, that actually matters. STuff like facial expressions, commercials, etc if stuff like that is why people are judging baker as a douche to the point where they should’ve gotten rid of him? I just don’t agree with that.
Calling out fans is great, it’s a risky move to take but fans are generally stupid, ill informed dummies (absolutely including myself in this) who don’t understand the situations they are criticising or know anything about what might be going on behind the scenes contributing to what looks bad on the outside. The way a whole legion of fans will literally send death threats to family members of players who had a poor fantasy performance makes it very hard to give fandom benefit of the doubt most of the time.
Also keep in mind Blueberries is the site’s resident curmudgeon when it comes to players with visible attitude. Baker seems like an annoying bro to me but not toxic. Also the whole flag planting thing was hilarious precisely for how mad it made Ohio State fans, we need more of those harmless displays of disrespect knocking fans off their high horses.
Get out of my swamp, you kids!
You make some fair points, I guess the question is, on what scale are we rating the douchebaggery? When I call him a dbag, it’s just my way of saying me no likee, so we might not be debating the same point, based on this comment of yours: “why people are judging baker as a douche to the point where they should’ve gotten rid of him”.
I can only speak for me. NONE of the things I dislike about him are arguments I would make for getting rid of him, *IF* he was performing on the field (I’d argue he doesn’t perform on the field, either, but that’s another topic). There are reasons why I, random Giants fan, can’t stand his ‘tude and enjoy watching him get humbled. BUT. I absolutely don’t think those are reasons to cut him in favor of an accused sexual predator. The Browns were f-ing stupid to replace him in the way they did for the player they did. 1000%.
While it’s not a perfect equivalent, I refer to Pre-2021 Aaron Rodgers. He’s been an annoying d-bag to me for years. But if I were a Packers fan? *shudder* I would have sighed and secretly hated him, but I’d never have wanted the team to cut him solely because he couldn’t handle jokes about his height. I’d have wanted them to trade him for a boat load of draft picks.
The social media stuff I was referring to was mostly Baker constantly getting into arguments with the likes of Colin Cowherd and others in the media who criticized him. Like I said before, I do think everything about Baker is forgivable and overlookable if you WANT to overlook it. As you have shown, there are excuses and sidesteps around all of them, and that’s totally fine. BUT, it’s still worth acknowledging that not every fan is going to give him that kind of leeway, and in those cases, his general NFL behavior absolutely warrants criticism.
That the Browns emphatically made a point of wanting “an adult” at QB COULD indicate something else was wrong with Dude’s relationship with the team. BUT, on the other hand, the Browns gave a sexual predator a metric ton of money despite not having played in a very long time, and they loaded it in a way to sidestep him losing money from suspension. So they’re very very very far from being a shining beacon of what “adult” behavior looks like, and they’re absolutely the bigger dbag here.
To be fair I fully encourage anyone who wants to call out Colin Cowherd
I think Baker’s problem was he trash talked but unlike someone like, Deoin Sanders, he wasn’t good enough to back it up. If you are going to be brash and outspoken in sports you kinda have to back it up otherwise you get labeled a malcontent
Yeah okay, if we’re just talking “he’s not likeable” then I can absolutely see that. BUt I don’t think that’s the same as not being professional, which was the main thing I took umbrage to. I just don’t really have an issue with athletes clapping back at people if it’s undeserved, and I think a lot of this stuff was undeserved to actually take him to task for. Nothing he did in cleveland imo is even close to what zach wilson said a few weeks ago, that is unprofessional.
Regardless, I ofc have no problem with difference of opinion so I hope I haven’t come off too strong here. Baker is definitely a polarizing figure. But I take him over OBJ in a heartbeat, because as emotional as baker was, he was never selfish about it like OBJ was. OBJ is someone who just wants his, baker is not that.
Emerald-
No, you’re not coming off badly at all, I think I just misunderstood your original point. I thought you were saying he hasn’t done anything that could be considered dbaggy since joining the NFL, period. But it seems your point is more that – football aside – he hasn’t done anything dbaggy enough to justify wanting him thrown off of a team. Which I more or less agree with.
But I do think the nuance of what would be considered “professional” or not is going to vary with the fanbase, since it’s kind of subjective. I prefer my QBs to walk softly and carry a big stick. Tiki called Eli a joke of a leader, and then Eli just shrugged, smiled, and made a few quips. THAT is what I like. I don’t want my qb to be quivering with rage, foaming at the mouth over the inept opinion of someone like Colin Cowherd, of all people. It’s more than just being good enough to back it up, Dave. It’s about not being so thin-skinned that idiot troll media people can derail your life with one or two trolling comments. I think that’s a really bad look for a qb, even if you’re good on the field, such as Pre-2021 Aaron Rodgers… total dbag despite performance on the field.
Or look at Tom Shady. I think he’s an a-hole, a terrible role model for sportsmanship or life, and a horrific leader. BUT, people like Skip Brainless will still line up to call him the Glorious Overlord with his “inspirational” personality, and claim that breaking tablets on the sideline really gets his team going… or something.
But yea, it’s definitely a gray area. Had the Browns been more like the Rams, few people would complain about it. Jared Goff was “fine” as the Rams QB. They didn’t think “fine” was good enough to win a trophy, so they replaced him with Stafford in a non-scandalous deal… nobody bats an eye. If the Browns signed a non-criminal to a not-shady deal, and just said, “We didn’t think Baker would get us to where we wanted to go, and we believe we’re ready to go NOW.” I think it would be less problematic.
I’m not sure who I’d take between Baker and OBJ. Both have health concerns, both are too loud for my liking, lol.
> It’s about not being so thin-skinned that idiot troll media people can derail your life with one or two trolling comments. I think that’s a really bad look for a qb
Ugh, I just had flashbacks to Ryan Leaf’s post game freakout after just his 3rd game. He was 2-1 at the time. That was the beginning of the end.
Baker’s grit and determination to stay on the field regardless of how hurt he was pretty much cost him a job in Cleveland. It definitely won him some fans at first, but it also came at a major cost given that the Browns used his poor play due to his obvious physical limitations to move on from him rather quickly while fans grew sick of him. Had he opted to sit out and heal rather than tough it out, I’m pretty confident that he would still be a Brown right now.
How long he’d last beyond that is another question. He always struck me as a guy that’s solid but not good enough to win you the big games when it matters (see AFC Divisional in KC). In a good situation like what he had in 2020, he’s not gonna lose you many games, but you can’t rely on him to carry you to glory. Maybe he’ll find another situation like that. More than likely he won’t, though.
Despite being the Heisman trophy winner, Darnold
wait, darnold was a heisman trophy winner? fuuuuuck
“ Out of nowhere, the Browns shell out for the Rapist”
I thought he played his whole career for the Steelers.
While neither Jones nor Mayfield have had especially stable teams surrounding them with both going through many head coaches and OCs compared to their short careers, so far, Jones is looking like the better of the two. Especially since Jones has spent the season throwing to XFL caliber receivers. It’ll be interesting to see where both are next year.
Him pulling the Cam newton and not reporting his injury will haunt him forever.
Holy hell. Homeless to hero in 48 hours
The Browns fucked up that pick at just about every juncture.
1. They picked him over Jackson and Allen to begin with.
2. When he showed some promise, they stuck him with Freddie and stunted his growth. Even after having some decent success, the organization stuck with him, but never really embraced him (kind of like Kirk Cousins in WAS)
3. They gave him the wrong WR corps to work with. If you know Baker has a bit of a Napoleon complex, don’t pair him up with OBJ and his best friend Jarvis Landry. When things go wrong, there’s a clear divide there waiting to be drawn.
4. He got hurt and nobody really came to his defense. Neither the team nor the coaching staff. He just played kind of shitty and nobody really knew until it was too late that there may be a significant physical reason why. He’s stated how that had a big effect on him personally and it just snowballed.
5. They signed Watson before getting rid of Baker and forced him to force his way out. Making him seem even more of a malcontent in the process when his only crime was playing hurt in a bad situation. That’s just not cool.
I’m glad he got at least a small moment of redemption against the Raiders.
Theres no way Allen would be were he is now if he had to go to the Browns. They had how many HCs and OCs since drafting Baker? And Allens first season was everything but stellar, hell not even his 2nd season was all that great, nevermind the Browns would have benched him after his first season and he would never get the chance to develop
Jackson is an entirely diffrent beast tho and its hard to predict what would have happened if he went to the Browns. Hes been carrying the corpse of the Baltimore offense with little help ever since he went there, both with his throws but especialy with his runing threat. Had he gone to the Browns instead idk what would have happend, the Browns already had a running game and im not sure how that would have mixed with Jacksons skillset
I always liked Baker for some reason. I doubt it will happen at this point but I hope he succeeds. I guess you never know though; look at Alex Smith. Smith forever taught me that it takes the right guy AND the right coach.
Also, his insurance commercials were one of the VERY few that I liked
Also, yes, lol, that he beat the Raiders after 2 days of being on the team.