The Cleveland Browns selected Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield as the No. 1 overall pick for the 2018 NFL Draft.
Mayfield had his moments in Cleveland, but he didn’t do enough to earn a second contract before the Browns dealt him to the Carolina Panthers before the 2022 season. After a stop with the Los Angeles Rams, Mayfield appears to have found his groove as a starter for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Finding his place in the NFL has given him the wisdom to look back at his time with the Browns and admit he made some mistakes.
“The last year in Cleveland as banged up as I was, looking back,” Mayfield said during an appearance on the Pardon My Take podcast. “I truly believe everything happens for a reason, playing through injuries and what not I wouldn’t change it now obviously, but in the midst of it should I have probably gotten surgery and sat out, year probably.”
Mayfield admitted that his stubbornness caused him to try to play through a shoulder injury in his last season in Cleveland.
“Watching the tape of those games now, cause after I got surgery I had to like reteach myself my throwing motion,” Mayfield said. “I got with a coach and redid everything cause I had manufactured having an arm stuck to my body, leg was all beat up too, so many factors. Like I said, I’m a stubborn [expletive].”
Still, Mayfield respects Browns fans.
“Part of it was feeling like I was part of the Cleveland community, like the blue-collar attitude of ‘we’re gonna fight through this.’ Not that I’m blaming the Cleveland people, but I feel like that’s just that attitude that we had going into it, and everybody kind of embraced it, but I wasn’t able to play to the best of my ability by any means.”
