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Baker Mayfield has seen his reputation with the Cleveland Browns nosedive since the start of the season, and now NFL pundits are beginning to pile on. Speaking on The Herd with Colin Cowherd, show co-host Joy Taylor outlined each of the quarterback's shortcomings in an attempt to explain why teams are not interested in him.
Basically, according to Taylor, the inability to elevate the team around him, coupled with the environment he brings, creates a recipe for an unenticing trade candidate. Here's how she put it:
“Baker can't elevate a bad roster. We have evidence of this in Cleveland. So he's not a good locker room guy. He's not a good leader. And he's disruptive. And he can't elevate a bad roster."
She continued, saying that adding the quarterback risks "losing the locker room:"
"So you're risking really losing the locker room because he's not a guy that keeps the locker room together, you know that he's not going to win significantly more games, he'd win just enough games to get you out of the quarterback space.”
Baker Mayfield's hot-and-cold career
The Browns quarterback has only been in the NFL for four seasons. However, in those seasons, he's essentially ran the gamut. From breakout rookie to injury-riddled "what if" to playoff contender, the young veteran has been it all. That is, except for Super Bowl champion or MVP.
That said, in two of his years in the NFL, the future never looked brighter for the Browns. Meanwhile, in his other two seasons, the Browns looked stuck in quarterback purgatory. In 2018, his rookie season, Mayfield helped snap a 1-31 skid, going 6-7 in 13 starts, according to Pro Football Reference. The future looked bright.
In 2019, Mayfield was served a slice of humble pie as he threw 22 touchdowns and 21 interceptions, going 6-10 in 16 starts. However, 2020 saw a massive bounceback as the quarterback put on the best season of his career. In the Covid season, he went 11-5 and won a playoff game while throwing 26 touchdowns and eight interceptions.
The year 2021 was set to be a year with Super Bowl potential. However, Mayfield caught the injury bug. When he was on the field, the team went 6-8 in 14 starts. In total, he threw for 17 touchdowns and 14 interceptions. Overall, most point to Mayfield's inconsistency as the biggest motivating factor in pushing the team to move on. Will the Browns find a trade partner before Week 1?
