Cleveland Browns: No, It's Not Time To Give Up On Baker Mayfield, Yet

The Cleveland Browns have been searching for a franchise quarterback for as long as anyone can remember. Everyone’s seen the jersey with all the quarterbacks crossed out on the back. To the casual audience, it’s funny but to Cleveland Browns fans, it’s torture. There have been plenty of quarterbacks they’ve swung and missed on but Baker Mayfield isn’t the worst of the bunch.

To start off, the 2020 Browns team had one heck of a run. While Mayfield struggled he wasn’t losing them games. Not only did they finally make a playoff appearance, but they were also really close to winning. There have been plenty of quarterbacks who weren’t Super Bowl favorites that kept their teams winning. Before Patrick Mahomes took over in Kansas City, Alex Smith was winning 10+ games a year. Chad Pennington took the Dolphins to the playoffs. Brad Johnson isn’t even in the top 50 passing leaders of all time and still has a Super Bowl championship. You don’t always have to have an elite quarterback to get the job done.

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Second of all, who do they have to replace him? Case Keenum isn’t much of an upgrade and clearly, his best days are behind them. Even if they go after a quarterback in the offseason, they’re going to waste another high draft pick on a guy who might not be ready. Is the quarterback they eventually choose going to be that much better than Mayfield to start with? If so, is he going to make the offense that much better than adding a positional player for Mayfield to throw to?

At the very least, they can snag a free agent but the quarterbacks available again would have to be above and beyond better than Mayfield. If not, it’s a quarterback competition. Now no one is against a QB competition, but if you set your organization behind by choosing the wrong guy you now have to turn back to Baker. More likely than not he’s going to be checked out on an organization who lost faith in him or at the very least request a trade.

While Mayfield seems to have regressed this year, so have the Cleveland Browns. They’re a run-first team with the majority of their productive backs out with injures, or on covid, or even underproducing. When the Browns started the season they put up 25+ points against good teams. With their injuries to the running backs, they’re barely hitting their teens in points. When the offense becomes one-dimensional, you can’t put it all on the quarterback.

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Browns fans are so used to having a bad quarterback, they don’t know what it’s like to have one who is sufficient enough. Bring in all the competition you want at QB, make him earn it. If he can step up and silence the critics then fine. Baker Mayfield may not be the quarterback to lead the Browns to the Super Bowl, but in a league where it’s so hard to find ones who can win games Baker has proved he can be serviceable. Give him a healthy team and some healthy competition and he might just turn it back around. If not, you’ve already got a division full of young QBs making a mark, do you really want to start back over and play from behind the curve?