LET ODELL GO
Beckham can’t truly move on until Browns QB Mayfield stops trashing Giants
Baker Mayfield has one thing right: there is no questioning the blind loyalty of a Cleveland Browns fan who continues paying actual money to watch a franchise with no Super Bowls that posted a combined 1-31 record in the 201617 seasons.
Honestly, that makes the 824 Giants of the past two years look like a juggernaut. Cleveland fans can have that badge of honor. No problem. The Giants will hold on to their four Lombardi Trophies.
Then come 2020, when the Browns are scheduled to visit the Giants at MetLife Stadium, Mayfield can count on every seat being filled and the game being televised in prime time.
The NFL might be able to launch a Friday Night Football package with the level of hype that game will generate, given Mayfield’s recent shot at absentee and fair-weather Giant fans on top of what will be Odell Beckham Jr.’s first return
to his old stomping grounds.
“He’s here to work, and he wants to be surrounded by people who love him and support him and allow him to be himself,” Mayfield told ESPN in a story published Wednesday. “He’s here to play in front of fans who actually care, who will actually show up to every game and pack the stadium and love him for who he is.”
There’s some truth in Mayfield’s defense of Beckham. But he also is fanning the flames of a nasty chapter between OBJ and NYG that it would serve the wide receiver to move on from. And he’s painting an even bigger bullseye on a Browns franchise already being overhyped into outer space after a 7-8-1 season.
Mayfield’s polarizing approach helped make him a Heisman Trophy winner and the NFL’s No. 1 overall pick in 2018. He’s not going to change who he is now, and I’m not saying he should. His personality is often refreshing. His pay-up to the Giants’ Saquon Barkley with a diamond “QUADS” pendant for the Offensive Rookie of the Year race? Beautiful.
But the 24-year-old could benefit from occasionally biting his tongue. His failure to do so has already had some unintended consequences. For example, earlier this offseason, Mayfield decided to stick his nose in running back Duke Johnson’s business. The 25-year-old running back had requested a trade and skipped workouts.
“That’s something that we’ve been dealing with for a while,’’ Mayfield said of Johnson’s trade request, per the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. “If we have guys that want to be here, they’ll show that, they’ll voice that. Obviously he’s going to handle his stuff how he wants, but you’re either on this train or you’re not, it’s moving. You can get out of the way or you can join us. so it is what it is.’’
Mayfield was trying to be an assertive leader, but NFL Network later reported some teammates were upset and that “several veterans came up to him in the locker room after those comments about Duke Johnson and voiced their displeasure, saying, ‘Listen, it’s one thing to be the leader, but this is a guy who is going through something. It’s business, and we need to support him.’”
You can’t deny that Mayfield’s trashing of Giants fans is rooted in facts and good intentions of defending Beckham, though. The Browns averaged 97.5 percent capacity for their eight home games last season, 17th in the NFL, while the Giants drew 93.3 percent, tied for 24th, per ESPN.
The Giants recorded more total fans in attendance in 2018 (615,525 to Cleveland’s 526,122) and a higher average per game (76,940 for the Giants and 65,765 for the Browns). But we all have eyes, and for the last two seasons plenty of Giant fans have stayed home in protest or disinterest of a franchise that has made bad decisions, lost its way and fired its coach and GM midseason in 2017.
Beckham, meanwhile, accurately sensed that a large percentage of the Giants fanbase always would side with the organization and Eli Manning over him. Blame for Manning’s and the Giants’ mistakes often found its way into OBJ’s lap, all the way up
to Dave Gettleman trading him and trying to sell fans on blaming the losing on a bad culture driven by Beckham.
Baker knows the lay of the land in East Rutherford.
That is Beckham’s battle to fight, though, and for the most part he has fought it already, arguably too often, pushing back through Twitter rants at Gettleman’s and the Giants’ constant disrespect of what the GM flippantly called Beckham’s “contributions.”
He needs to be done with that. It is time that Beckham moves on.
If Mayfield wants to have an ax to grind against the Giants, he can grab a hatchet over the fact that Big Blue wouldn’t have drafted him No. 2 overall in 2018 — even if he’d still been available. In the meantime, the Browns and OBJ might be better off if their brash QB trained everyone’s focus on the positive present rather than reliving a regrettable part of someone else’s past.