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Toward the End: Readings, Writings, Football
Mayfield Memorandum 23: Going on Offense
Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield survived another week to be abused and doubted a while longer. The team’s 24-22 victory over Baltimore kept it in theoretical contention for an unheard of second straight NFL-playoff invitation but the triumph was not his....
Mayfield Memorandum 22: Slights Not Forgotten
Since someone is always slapping Baker Mayfield in the face with the Browns’ five-game, season-ending gauntlet that he faces, how the quarterback has historically reacted to such slights seems more than pertinent now. An inference can be drawn from the road ahead...
OU New/Old Coach True Blue Crimson and Cream
When it comes to dream jobs, patience and quiet persistence may be required. These do not grow on trees, especially in a plains-and-prairie state such as Oklahoma, where trees can be scarce. Striving for the dream job can feel like a long-haul nightmare. The perfect...
Mr. Super Hero Cleats Saved an Unsettling Season
Photo from Missy Buck Gillman Defensive lineman Dempsey Gillman has hung up his Super Hero Cleats Though not yet concluded, this football season, from preps to pros, but especially with regard to the college I follow most closely, has proved the most unsettling...
Mayfield Memorandum 21: This is Leadership?
That Kevin Stefanski is downright Churchillian when it comes to demonstrating leadership. Before his team’s latest debacle, a 16-10 loss to the Baltimore Ravens, ESPN reporter Sal Paolantonio reported that he had asked the Cleveland Browns coach what he expected from...
Mayfield Memorandum 20: Déjà vu all over again
A decade of blue moons and sad-sack quarterbacks ago, an earlier version of the New Browns football hierarchy had begun to cut the legs out from under a quarterback that its deep thinkers had thought not two years before might be able to lead the team to the promised...
Mayfield Memorandum 19: Life, Death, and Football
It isn’t even Game Day and already Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield has proved a winner this week, because some things are more important than football. His more than 10-minute Wednesday question-answer session with the media ended in a way that revealed...
Mayfield Memorandum 18: Bad Baker, Bad Browns
Early on in the Cleveland Browns’ disintegration at the New England Patriots, it became apparent that Baker Mayfield was neither the healthiest nor best quarterback on the Gillette Stadium field. He wasn’t even second best. That would be , former Brown Brian Hoyer....
Mayfield Memorandum 17: The Line on Extensions
Even in the midst of celebrating the richly deserved contract extensions of Cleveland Browns guards Joel Bitonio and Wyatt Teller, the elephant remained in the room: When will Baker Mayfield, the guy they spend their workdays (and nights) protecting, get his? It is...
Mayfield Memorandum 16: Now, It’s Baker’s Team
Ever had one of those weeks at work when everything went wrong? Baker Mayfield’s was worse. He Who Will Remain Nameless but is readily identifiable by his initials (OBJ) because he so famously—make that infamously—smeared his quarterback in an attempt to get out of...