Browns QB Mayfield lauded for speech
Baker Mayfield looked around the Arrowhead Stadium locker room Sunday night and thought the Browns needed to snap out of it.
Turns out the quarterback read his teammates properly, and his speech was welcomed after the Browns suffered a 33-29 season-opening loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, who had ousted Cleveland from the playoffs eight months earlier in the divisional round.
“Yeah, I think so,” two-time Pro Bowl running back Nick Chubb said Wednesday. “I think for me personally, I was thinking like the season was over again because that's how it ended last year. I had to take a second, step back and realize we have 16 more [games] to go. So it's not the end of the world. We did lose, but we can correct some things. Me personally, I can correct a lot of things, and we can go from there.”
Now the Browns (0-1) are moving on to prepare for Sunday's home opener against the Houston Texans (1-0), but Mayfield needed to help them turn the page. Chubb said wide receiver Jarvis Landry also addressed the team with its wounds reopened from the 22-17 playoff loss on Jan. 17 in Kansas City.
Mayfield saw some of his teammates hanging their heads and thought he needed to speak up because of that.
Mayfield hammered this point: Coming off a record of 12-6, including 1-1 in the playoffs, the Browns are too good for moral victories, so they need to process their most recent setback against the two-time defending AFC champion Chiefs the right way
“Be critical of yourself . ... I'll be damned if we're not because we expect to go in there and win,” Mayfield said. “But there's also more opportunities, so you have to roll with the punches, face adversity. How do you handle it? How do you handle it the next week? How do you approach the week of practice and how do you know how to show up the next week?”