CLEVELAND, Ohio – As Baker Mayfield continues to thrive with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, some Browns fans are left wondering what might have been if he had continued his career in a Cleveland uniform.
Following Mayfield’s impressive Monday Night Football performance (28 of 38 for 215 yards and two touchdowns in a 20-19 win over Houston), Terry Pluto revealed on this week’s Terry’s Talkin’ podcast what he heard really ended Mayfield’s time in Cleveland.
“I was told by two high-ranking people had they not gone after (Deshaun) Watson, they would have stayed with Baker,” Pluto said. “See, they became obsessed as an organization with Watson.”
According to Pluto, it wasn’t necessarily a fundamental lack of belief in Mayfield that drove the team to move on, but rather an organizational fixation on acquiring Watson despite the legal baggage he carried.
“They didn’t care that he sat out a year. They didn’t care that he sat out a year after signing a four-year contract. He played one year on the new four-year contract and sat out,” Pluto said.
“(The Browns) probably just kept watching those tapes of 2020 when Watson led the league in passing yardage and was in the Pro Bowl, and dreaming.”
The Browns’ decision to pursue Watson at all costs created an irreparable rift with Mayfield, who requested a trade before the Watson deal was even finalized. This set in motion Mayfield’s journey to the Panthers and the Rams before landing in Tampa Bay.
Would Mayfield have developed into the quarterback he is today had he stayed in Cleveland? Many Cleveland fans feel he would have.
The other school of thought is that Mayfield never would have become what he is now if he hadn’t left and gone to the Rams and gone to Carolina and been humbled and changed how he approached the job. That’s a view shared by long-time cleveland.com Browns reporter Mary Kay Cabot in a column this week.
Pluto acknowledged this theory, suggesting that bouncing around the league likely helped Mayfield mature. But he also wondered if things might have been different had the Browns handled his injury situation better in 2021.
“Part of me just wonders if he just would have let them bench him when he was hurt, got the shoulder surgery and come back healthy. What would that have been?” Pluto asked.
The numbers tell a striking story. In Tampa, Mayfield has compiled a 21-15 record as a starter with an impressive 74 touchdowns to just 26 interceptions while completing nearly 67% of his passes. His best season in Cleveland came in 2020 under Kevin Stefanski, when he went 11-5 with 26 touchdowns and 8 interceptions – similar to his current production with the Buccaneers.
While the “what if” scenario remains fascinating, Pluto noted there were signs the Browns had doubts about Mayfield even after his successful 2020 campaign.
“There were clearly doubts about Baker even after his good season in ’20, because they never did make a much of an offer for a contract extension,” he explained. “In the meantime, the obsession with Watson totally wiped out Baker.”
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