Posted in another thread but deserving of a longer look, a Browns writer for The Athletic examines the dysfunction between Mayfield and the team.
Trying to identify where it all went wrong (subscription required)
The writer here clearly isn't a Mayfield fan (I suspect Mayfield critics will love this article) and he pulls no punches when it comes to criticizing him. He also recognizes though that, even with the improvement of the past few seasons, the Browns are still the Browns...and far from blameless in this story.
Excerpts:
He arrived in Cleveland right about the time LeBron James was leaving. I told my bosses at The Athletic early into Mayfield’s rookie year that he was going to be Cleveland’s new LeBron and we needed to treat him as such.
Four years later, he’s gone, swept away in a cocktail of incompletions and interceptions blended with some of the highest moments this franchise has experienced in the last 25 years. Admittedly, that’s not a high bar, which is why Mayfield’s mediocrity looked so good in isolated moments to a thirsty fan base searching for someone to love.
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Mayfield’s legacy in Cleveland will forever be akin to the messy franchise that drafted him: complicated. He departs fourth on the all-time list in passing yards behind only Brian Sipe, Otto Graham and Bernie Kosar — the holy trinity of Browns quarterbacks. He’s fifth in touchdown passes and second in passer rating (minimum 500 attempts).
Yet his constant failures in fourth quarters and tight moments, dating back to his rookie year, made it evident the Browns needed to get better at the most important position to compete with the arms race of AFC quarterbacks. Mayfield always thought he was better than he was and it repeatedly got him into trouble with terrible footwork and ill-advised throws at inopportune times.
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The debate last summer was whether Mayfield was worth a $300 million contract. The Browns wisely never offered him an extension and, in a stunning reversal, ultimately had to eat $10 million just to unload him.
Mayfield has valid complaints. The Browns were toxic for 20 years and cycled through four head coaches and four coordinators in his first three seasons, terrible instability for a franchise quarterback. He sparred with Jackson after he was fired, and Mayfield was sabotaged by an unprepared and overwhelmed Freddie Kitchens, who was so horrifically inept at his job that he cost general manager John Dorsey his.
It was supposed to be different with Kevin Stefanski, and at times, it was. Mayfield and Stefanski were terrific dance partners in 2020, guiding the Browns to the postseason and the team’s only playoff win of the new era. Stefanski spent their first season together trying hard to get Mayfield comfortable early in games with simple pitch-and-catch routes before getting more aggressive as the game progressed. It worked well for a while, but the relationship soured like so many others involving Mayfield.
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By the time it was over, there was a lack of trust on both sides. Mayfield was annoyed Stefanski missed a meeting the day after the Browns were thrashed by the Patriots and thought the play-caller should attend every session. Stefanski was absent because he was meeting instead with Myles Garrett, according to a source, after Garrett lashed out to the media postgame over the coaching staff’s lack of adjustments at New England.
In one of those “careful what you wish for” moments, Stefanski never missed another meeting and privately shined a glaring spotlight on his quarterback during film sessions from that day forward.
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There were plenty of errors to point out. In a league built for close finishes, Mayfield had a passer rating of 17.8 in the final four minutes of games last season when the Browns trailed by one possession or less. For those insisting it was the shoulder injury hindering him, Mayfield’s career passer rating was 51.1 under the same parameters — 59th in the NFL. His 19 career interceptions in fourth quarters are the second-most in the league since 2018.
This wasn’t just a shoulder issue, it was a Baker issue. Yet at least one member of the organization openly wondered to me in recent weeks how much different things would look today had Mayfield shut it down after initially injuring the shoulder against Houston in Week 2 or even after further damaging the shoulder against Arizona. Would he still be the quarterback today? Maybe.
By the end of last season, however, it was clear Stefanski had lost faith in his quarterback. Mayfield lost confidence in himself and what he was seeing and therefore his head coach could no longer trust him. Mayfield was irate by the protection calls in his final game at Pittsburgh when he was sacked nine times and had five passes batted down at the line. He asked out loud why there was no help on the edge for rookie tackle James Hudson, who was overwhelmed by T.J. Watt and a Steelers pass rush that battered Mayfield for four quarters.
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There was an eerie feeling surrounding that night. Watching it live, it felt like Mayfield’s final game as a member of the Browns, and ultimately it was. It looked from the press box like the Browns were setting up Mayfield to fail, almost deliberately delivering him a message. The team privately felt like Mayfield had plenty of chances to get rid of the ball and part of his problems that night were systemic to his issues throughout the season: a lack of confidence and an inability to trust what he saw.
We were left with a quarterback who didn’t trust his coach and a coach who didn’t trust his quarterback. Whether or not that ever could’ve been repaired will never be known now, but the team believed the issue was more the quarterback than the coach.
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Mayfield was widely viewed as childish and immature. His behavior annoyed teammates and divided the locker room. He was often difficult to coach.
Ironically, he’s off to another tenuous situation in Carolina to learn another system under another head coach who could soon be fired. Matt Rhule and Mayfield are now relying on each to save the other. At least Rhule will be getting a motivated Mayfield who feels slighted and disrespected. That’s historically when Baker has been at his best.
The Browns saw flashes of his best, but not enough of them. It’s on to Watson … eventually. A franchise that has spent the better part of the last 20 years in football hell is back in purgatory, waiting on another new quarterback to save them.
