Four turnovers mar Mayfield’s promising start

OAKLAND, Calif.—Baker Mayfield spun out of sacks and turned them into big plays, led Cleveland to its highest-scoring game in more than a decade and showed why the Browns thought highly enough of him to make him the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft.

Mayfield’s first NFL start would have gone down as a major success if not for some untimely turnovers and a replay review that allowed the Oakland Raiders to rally for the late tying score before winning in overtime.

Instead, it ended up like so many other games for the hapless Browns since they returned to the NFL in 1999.

Mayfield threw for 295 yards and two touchdowns, but also committed four turnovers that helped the Raiders deny the Browns their first back-to-back wins in four years with a 45-42 overtime victory on Sunday.

“We turned the ball over too many times, gave them a chance,” Mayfield said. “In this league, when you turn the ball over like we did today, like I did, you’re not going to win those games. We saw the end result of that.”

Mayfield put the Browns (1-2-1) in an early hole when his pass on the second drive of the game deflected off receiver Antonio Callaway’s hands and went right to Gareon Conley , who returned the interception 36 yards for a touchdown.

Then he showed the big-play ability that helped him win the Heisman Trophy at Oklahoma, become the No. 1 pick and convince the Browns to put him in far earlier in the season than originally planned.

He got his first career TD on a 49-yard pass to Darren Fells in the second quarter and put Cleveland up 28-14 with a 2-yard strike to Jarvis Landry in the third.

But then Mayfield got stripped on a sack by Maurice Hurst and fumbled a snap from JC Tretter to set up two short TD drives for the Raiders, who then built a 34-28 lead early in the fourth quarter.

“He’s going to learn,” coach Hue Jackson said. “He’s got football intelligence. Today, as he goes through it, he’ll understand, and we’ve talked about it a little bit, just how important those things are. You got to be team-protecting in certain situations, but you don’t want to rein him in, because I like the things he’s doing.”