Mayfield's big mouth is his own worst enemy
Four years and one month ago, Baker Mayfield informed the world he was “going to be the best to ever play” quarterback in the NFL.
Now, he's just hoping to land a starting gig. Somewhere. Anywhere. Mayfield celebrated his 27th birthday on Thursday still not knowing where he'll play football this year. And whether he'll even have much of a chance to earn a starting job.
Although Mayfield remains on the roster of the Cleveland Browns, he probably won't be for much longer. He wants out and the Browns want him out.
It's likely just a matter of when, and how, that comes about.
If the Browns cannot find a trade partner for Mayfield in the days and weeks ahead, presumably they'll just cut him outright. To include him on the 53-man roster as a third-string QB would waste a valuable spot and to park him on some non-injury list would be unnecessarily spiteful.
Mayfield's exit from the south shore of Lake Erie became a veritable fait accompli once Cleveland mortgaged its future last month to acquire Deshaun Watson in a March 18 trade with the Houston Texans. At the same time, the Browns agreed to pay Watson nearly a quarter of a billion dollars over the next five seasons — in the biggest blockbuster dual-transaction in NFL history.
It's the kind of commitment Mayfield himself ached for over the past two seasons, his third and fourth with the Browns since they drafted him No. 1 overall in 2018.
The club, however, obviously became unconvinced he was ever going to be `The Guy.'
That Mayfield is enraged at how the Browns handled everything this off-season — especially their at-first clandestine, then eventually open, pursuit of Watson — is wholly understandable.
Mayfield told a podcast on Wednesday that “I feel disrespected 100 per cent, because I was told one thing, and they completely did another.”
Mayfield isn't the first or even the 101st NFL quarterback who feels his team has done him wrong, and is incensed about it.
Problem is, the young man just cannot ever stop himself from sharing publicly when he is outraged or affronted.
Only hours after word first leaked a month ago that the Browns were interested in trading for Watson, Mayfield released what amounted to a goodbye letter to Cleveland and to Browns fans.
Mayfield thought he was outsmarting the Browns by further forcing a trade, whether or not the club could acquire Watson. But think about it.
Mayfield's petulance and kneejerk need to tell the world just how deeply his pride has been hurt, actually hurt Cleveland's ability to trade him.
When a potential trade partner KNOWS you've got to get rid of a player, said player's trade value plummets.
What's more, Mayfield miscalculated both his perceived value around the league and the scant remaining number of teams who'd consider him an upgrade at starter.
Seattle? Carolina? Sure. But who else? Or at least, who else besides any team still committed to a QB drafted in the past three years?
Mayfield to Seattle makes all the sense in the world. Unless the NFL's oldest head coach, 70-year-old Pete Carroll, is truly tired of having a prima donna quarterback at this point in his career.