CLEVELAND — The Cleveland Browns rid themselves of a failed quarterback yet again on Wednesday afternoon when the team traded Baker Mayfield to the Carolina Panthers for a conditional draft pick.
The conclusion of the Mayfield era in Cleveland was as unceremonious as every other quarterback -- all 30 before him, and the two that filled in at times last year -- that couldn’t get the job done before him.
The story was different this time.
Mayfield is the first quarterback that Browns fans are going to be able to look back upon and have fond memories of. He helped to turn a team around from the lowest depths possible, inheriting a team that went 1-31 in the two years prior to his arrival and winning the team’s first playoff game in the expansion era.
There was a reason to hope that the future was bright not only with Mayfield, but because of Mayfield. There are plenty of Sunday afternoons that fans can point to and have legitimately believed in that moment that the Browns finally had their franchise quarterback.
Without question, Mayfield was better than every other quarterback that has played for the Browns since their return to the field in 1999. He was better than Tim Couch, Kelly Holcomb, Josh McCown, Brady Quinn, DeShone Kizer, Cody Kessler, Jeff Garcia, and 2007 Pro Bowl quarterback Derek Anderson.
He was better than all of them, unquestionably, but being better than every Browns quarterback of yesteryear doesn’t mean being good enough. Don’t confuse the two.
Confusing Mayfield being better than the rest and good enough is an easy thing to do. Having a talented quarterback isn’t something Cleveland was used to. It was easy to fall for Mayfield’s braggadocios charm when he was making throws and leading the Browns to a playoff appearance. It was also an act that wore thin coming from a player that ultimately had more bad than good on his resume.
Yes, 2020 was the most fun many Browns fans have ever had in watching the team, but that doesn’t excuse the disaster of 2019, a very up-and-down rookie season, and one of the most disappointing seasons in an injury-riddled 2021. Mayfield was capable of helping to create the magic of that 2020 run, but that has proved to be the outlier of his career and not the norm.
That isn’t the case with a franchise quarterback, which Mayfield ultimately proved not to be. Whether or not the team traded for quarterback Deshaun Watson -- who is plagued with off-the-field baggage to be discussed in a different conversation -- it still made sense to move on from Mayfield.
It can be argued as to whether or not the Mayfield era in Cleveland was a successful one. As mentioned there were plenty of bright moments for him and the team over the past four seasons. Those moments were too few and far between for his time to be labeled a success. When a player is drafted No. 1 overall -- as Mayfield was in 2018 -- that player is expected to become a franchise-leading player. Mayfield isn’t that.
The case can be made that the former walk-on from Austin, Texas, has spent his whole football life overachieving. He’s shorter than the ideal quarterback, lacks the foot speed of an elite athlete, but somehow has been able to consistently be good enough to not only find himself in the NFL, but also have one of the most decorated collegiate careers ever. By those measures, he’s ultimately a success, and he could be ruled one for the Browns if just strictly looking at the fact that he has overachieved for who he actually is as a quarterback.
That lacks context, though. It has to be included that the Browns drafted Mayfield instead of Buffalo’s Josh Allen -- who was far from a sure thing coming out of Wyoming -- back in 2018. The franchise, led by general manager John Dorsey at the time, could have selected any draft-eligible player in the country with the top overall pick. It hitched its wagon to Mayfield and that ultimately was the wrong decision. It’s a move that can clearly be judged in hindsight as the improper one. When that’s the truth, it’s hard to view it as a success.
Yes, Mayfield helped to lift the franchise out of its darkest days to heights it hadn’t seen since the late 1980s with Bernie Kosar running the offense. That should matter to Browns fans and should be brought up when speaking about his career one day.
In the NFL, it just matters more that he wasn’t the guy that could get the team over the hump. The Browns are in the business of trying to win their first Super Bowl in franchise history, and Mayfield wasn’t capable of leading them there.