National Post (National Edition)
Browns-Giants war of words continues
Latest shot over drafting of QB Daniel Jones
Too bad the Cleveland Browns and New York Giants aren’t in the same NFL division, given the two trades that went down between them in the spring and the never-ending needling from Browns players since then.
The latest shot came Tuesday with this year’s bombshell blathering from a featured NFL player in GQ magazine. Second-year Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield derided the Giants’ drafting in April of Daniel Jones at No. 6 overall.
“I cannot believe the Giants took Daniel Jones,” Mayfield, the No. 1 overall pick in 2018, said in GQ. “Blows my mind.”
“Some people overthink it. That’s where people go wrong. They forget you’ve got to win … Either you have a history of winning and being that guy for your team or you don’t.”
On Tuesday afternoon, Mayfield posted a message to Instagram that said in part:
“This is not what I said ... just so we’re clear. I also said I was surprised I got drafted number one. Then was talking about the flaws in evaluating QBs. (That’s) where I brought up winning being important.
“Reporters and media will do anything to come up with a click-bait story. Heard nothing but good things and wish nothing but the best for Daniel.”
So, really, in a phrase coined in All the President’s Men, a non-denial denial.
Mayfield played his final three college years at a perennial NCAA juggernaut, the University of Oklahoma. Two years before that, in 2013, Mayfield won the starting job at Texas Tech as a walkon.
In contrast, Jones played at Duke University, a traditional college football doormat. Surrounded by sub-standard playmakers and protected by a sub-standard offensive line in the Atlantic Coast Conference, Jones lost more games than he won, but not by much.
Let’s compare each’s career college record against his school’s all-time winning percentage.
First, at Texas Tech, Mayfield in 2013 won five of eight starts for a .625 winning percentage, better than the university’s all-time success rate of .557. After transferring to Oklahoma and sitting out a year, Mayfield went 33-6 for an .846 winning percentage, bettering even that university’s lofty all-time success rate of .725.
Jones at Duke went 17-19 over three years, a .472 winning percentage, slightly worse than the Blue Devils’ all-time success rate of .488.
So in that respect you might conclude Mayfield has earned the right to criticize Jones and the Giants.
But really, has he? Was the shot necessary? Or prudent? No, no and no.
Mayfield has yet to win half his starts in the NFL (he went 6-7 as a rookie). What’s the old line? Until you’ve done something of note yourself, shut the heck up. Or something like that.
No one, perhaps not even the few who run the Giants, knows when Jones will begin to start games as a rookie. Maybe not at all if Eli Manning rebounds with his best season in years, which is possible, if not expected.
But maybe Jones will start sooner than later in 2019. Maybe he’ll even outshine Mayfield. Who knows?
Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens tried to downplay the incident, saying “we do not care” if the bull’s-eye on Mayfield around the league just got bigger.
“It is already on there, so it does not matter. We will be ready to play.”
Meantime, also on Tuesday came another controversial comment from star Browns receiver Odell Beckham Jr., whom the Giants dealt to Cleveland in March. Beckham told Sports Illustrated the Giants, as a club, are “stuck in an older mindset” and turned down better trade offers in an attempt to stick it to him.
“This wasn’t no business move,” Beckham told the magazine. “This was personal. They thought they’d send me here to die.”
Or maybe, for the betterment of the team, they sent away a perennially whiny player who has claimed he felt “disrespected” in New York.
Kitchens was asked, given his continuing post-trade shots at the Giants, whether “OBJ” is all in with the Browns.
“No doubt,” Kitchens said. “I trust him.”
For his next big shot at his former team, perhaps Beckham can hold off until next summer’s GQ cover story.
Last year, if you recall, Jacksonville’s outspoken cornerback Jalen Ramsey trashed a slew of league quarterbacks, perhaps no one more so than Buffalo Bills rookie Josh Allen (who, by the way, got the last laugh in a November win over a contrite Ramsey and the Jaguars in Buffalo).
The Giants eventually folded two trades into one last March and April. Beckham and defensive end Olivier Vernon went to Cleveland in exchange for strong safety and kick-returner Jabrill Peppers, guard Kevin Zeitler plus the Nos. 17 and 95 picks in April’s draft.
For his part, Jones chose not to directly respond to the reported Mayfield comments, other than to say: “I try not to listen to much that’s said. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of that. I heard that before. I kind of have the same mindset. I certainly have a lot to focus on here.”