The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
QB draft carousel brings Mayfield to Berea
Baker Mayfield, one of the quarterbacks the Browns are considering choosing with the first pick in the draft April 26, was scheduled to arrive in Cleveland on April 2 to begin a two-day visit in Berea, according to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network.
Josh Allen of Wyoming, Josh Rosen of UCLA and Sam Darnold of USC are also expected to visit Browns headquarters in the coming days, cleveland.com reported.
The order in which the quarterbacks are visiting doesn’t indicate the Browns prefer one over the rest; the visit to a team’s facility is the one coaches and general managers weigh heavily to determine how a player would fit into that team’s culture.
They can test him on a variety of subjects, including how much of the playbook he can digest quickly when asked to diagram a play on the whiteboard. They can learn more about a player’s personality than they do at a pro day or even a private workout at the player’s school.
“That’s probably the last piece of the process for us to bring them to campus and have an opportunity to sit down with them in a different environment and talk through the thing,” Coach Hue Jackson told reporters at league meetings last week in Orlando. “But we will discuss how we all felt since the trip. But that will be the final piece for us.
“We all have a pretty good understanding of who the guys are, what they bring to the table. They’re all very worthy candidates. They’re all kind of different. But then again, we have to see what’s the best fit for us.”
All the top quarterbacks are making the circuit among the Browns, Giants and Jets, owners of the top three picks in that order.
The Browns sat down with Mayfield at his private workout for them and
left convinced he isn’t the jerk he has been painted to be. They will learn more about him when Mayfield is in Berea.
“I think he’s outstanding,” Jackson said in Orlando. “Spending that time with him (at the private workout), what a leader, tremendous person.”
Mayfield notoriously was arrested in Arkansas in 2017, tried to plant an Oklahoma flag in the artificial turf of Ohio Stadium after the Sooners beat the Buckeyes last fall and grabbed his crotch on national television during a heated moment in a game with Kansas. Those incidents have led analysts to
compare Mayfield to former Browns quarterback Johnny Manziel, an embarrassment to the team and a flop as a first-round draft pick in 2014.
“Honest, tell the true story,” Mayfield said at the Combine last month. “When I got tackled by the cops in Arkansas, I tell them a true story. When I talk about planting the flag at Ohio State I tell them a true story, about the fact that was an emotional win, that was one we worked for over a year for after they embarrassed us in our home stadium.
“And you want to talk about the Kansas thing; it’s about where you draw
the line and being professional. If you want to be a franchise guy, there are certain things I can’t do, but I’m still going to be competitive and passionate. That’s gotten me to this point, so we talk about it. I’m up front about it.”
Mayfield added this nugget in an interview with MMQB:
“It’s pretty easy to see that I’m not Johnny,” Mayfield said. “I’m not gonna lose my head. I love the game of football.”
The visit to Berea gives Mayfield another chance to convince the Browns he should be the first pick of the draft.