My heart pounds with excitement when Tony Grossi and Mary Kay Cabot, both of whom I knew in my better days, unsheathe their scalpels and plunge into yet another dissection of Baker Mayfield. Quarterbacking can be a bloody tough business.
Grossi and Cabot, king and queen of Browns writers, know Mayfield as well as sports journalists know any famous athlete about whom they write or speak and certainly better than me, even if I am, like Mayfield, a former Oklahoman. (Mayfield grew up and still lives in Texas, but Oklahomans forgive him.)
Current knowledge, gained up close and personally, being the coin of the realm, I dare say neither of them have tracked Mayfield as long and closely as I. In this case, distance, I think, can both provide perspective and also make the heart grow fonder.
As a devout follower of Big 12 Conference football from days it was the Big 6 and then the Big 8, I came across Mayfield when he first revealed to the larger world the underappreciated pattern of his life. Though he could have had a scholarship in a lesser conference, Mayfield instead showed up at Texas Tech and did the unthinkable: He the starting quarterback as a walk-on freshman. This Big 12 first must not have sufficiently impressed coach Kliff Kingsbury.
When injury befell Mayfield, he not only lost his job but Kingsbury also did not respond with the scholarship he surely had earned. This did nothing to whittle down the chip on his shoulder that Mayfield had brought to Lubbock, Texas. His response, not strangely, was to transfer; where he transferred, however, was strange.
Mayfield turned up at Oklahoma, uninvited and unbeknownst to then coach Bob Stoops. The Sooners were coming off a Sugar Bowl victory over Alabama, and Trevor Knight, the quarterback who engineered this uncommon success over the defending national champion Tide, seemed firmly ensconced. After a redshirt season, however, Mayfield took away Knight’s job. He transferred to Texas A&M, where he again became a starter, and Mayfield began a three-year march to the Heisman Trophy and NFL No. 1 pick.
No one in Cleveland knows more than ESPN’s Jake Trotter about Mayfield and his Oklahoma quarterbacking epiphany under the divine inspiration of Lincoln Riley, first as Sooner offensive coordinator and then as young handpicked successor of Bob Stoops. Trotter witnessed it all before, like Mayfield, he moved on to the NFL in of all perfect places, Cleveland, Mayfield’s new home.
As great an understanding of Mayfield as Trotter brings, Northeast Ohio might have been even more fortunate had the Browns been interested in and/or able to coax Riley to follow his quarterback to Cleveland. Not that everyone admired Mayfield when John Dorsey drafted “Buddy Boy” because he saw greatness in him. The New Browns—reconstituted in 1999—have no association with such quality among the many quarterbacks they have drafted to the point of becoming a running joke.
When Dorsey surprised many by calling Mayfield’s number in a seemingly rich field of quarterbacks in 2018, I exalted and cringed simultaneously. As Akron Beacon Journal sports columnist in the 1980s and ’90s, I had had the good fortune to have Bernie Kosar about whom to write. I knew what a great Browns quarterback looked like. But if any team could ruin Mayfield, it was the New Browns, regardless the coach or management.
Which brings us to the current quarterbacking vivisections by Drs. Grossi and Cabot in the wake of Mayfield’s role in the Browns’ second victory in three games under the new sideline management of Kevin Stefanski. Dr. Grossi and Dr. Cabot offer knowledgeable views of Mayfield, who performed with style and substance as a rookie thrown into the 2018 fray earlier than anticipated before regressing in 2019 and leaving those newer to Mayfield wondering what to make of him. Which is the real Mayfield?
“The reinvention of Baker Mayfield from swashbuckling gunslinger is unfolding before our eyes,” Grossi offered on TheLandonDemand.com (a website you must pay to read, but Grossi is worth it). By throwing less (30 or fewer) and counting on runners Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt for production, especially with a lead, the Browns exhibited against Cincinnati and Washington the offense that won Stefanski his job. He has turned a swashbuckler into a “point quarterback.”
Grossi does acknowledge that “the image of (Mayfield as) gunslinger was a bit exaggerated. In his 40 games for Oklahoma, Mayfield averaged 28.9 pass attempted per game” and had a record of 34-6. The difference in the 2020 victories is that Mayfield has seldom gone deep whereas at Oklahoma he complemented a strong run game with bombs to home-run hitters Marquise Brown (Ravens) and CeeDee Lamb (Cowboys). Grossi understands “the key to long-term success is being able to win if the quarterback has to throw more than 30 times” and, like Kosar, has a taste and heart for deep shots.
Game manager is a euphemism for a quarterback who cannot carry a team. It is not just a local matter. USA Today in its NFL Power Rankings—the Browns moved up from 21 to 17—wrote: “QB Baker Mayfield appears he’s dialing into exactly what Cleveland needs him to be—gasp, a game manager.” That sells Mayfield short and is a concept with which his personality does not fit. He wants his team to win, and he wants to help.
“Mayfield is certainly capable,” Cabot wrote on Cleveland.com, “having engineered four fourth-quarter comebacks and game-winning drives as a rookie and a total of five and six in his 33 starts, respectfully.” Before Mayfield is entitled to the pot of gold at the end of the NFL quarterback rainbow, she believes the Browns must see a better Mayfield.
She wants the one Dorsey and I saw at Oklahoma, a quarterback who can distribute the ball to his playmakers and, like a point guard, let them be the scorers, as well as the quarterback who can manage to throw long, accurately, winningly as is his long history.
