This image sums up the state of Baker Mayfield's career. He needs a new team, fast.
Here’s the creative deal the Browns can make right now to resolve the Baker Mayfield quandary
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Editor's note: Tony Grossi is a Cleveland Browns analyst for TheLandOnDemand.com and 850 ESPN Cleveland.
In the 2018 draft, the Browns made quarterback Baker Mayfield the NFL’s first overall pick and cornerback Denzel Ward the fourth.
Who’d have guessed on that day that Ward would be the one to see a second contract with the Browns and not Mayfield?
Three years later, Mayfield became the first Browns quarterback to oversee a Cleveland post-season win on the road since 1969 and the first to win in Heinz Field since 2003.
In the 2020 AFC wild-card game, Mayfield was flawless, throwing for 263 yards and three touchdowns and wasn’t sacked or intercepted in the 48-37 romp over the hated Pittsburgh Steelers. Indeed, the Browns’ defense was inspiring, too. It hounded nemesis Ben Roethlisberger for four interceptions and one fumble recovered for a touchdown. Yet Ward didn’t even play because of COVID-19.
Again, who could’ve guessed that just 14 months later, Ward would be the one to receive a record-breaking contract and Mayfield would be a virtual franchise outcast?
“It can be gone like that,” Mayfield said on the Ya Never Know podcast last week. “You have to go earn it every day … It’s a cold-hearted business. You’re never safe.”
On Tuesday, the day Ward signed a historic contract paying him $105 million over five years – the richest ever for an NFL cornerback – he reported to the Browns’ voluntary offseason program while Mayfield remained in Austin, TX, rehabbing his left shoulder after surgery and pondering his uncertain future, a quarterback without a team.
“[I] have no idea where I’m going, but I’m not nervous,” Mayfield said. “Because I’ve gone through a lot of s*** the past few years. I have no clue where I’m going.”
Clock ticking
Browns GM Andrew Berry has professed to be under no pressure to pursue a “sub-optimal trade” for Mayfield, or even to release him.
By virtue of Ward’s new contract, which overrode his scheduled salary cap figure for 2022, the Browns actually increased their salary cap room to more than $24 million – second in the NFL by just $200,000 to Carolina. That’s counting Mayfield’s $18.858 million salary on the Browns’ books for 2022.
But Mayfield’s guaranteed contract – the result of the Browns picking up his fifth-year option last May, which was actually the conservative course of action – is a heavy albatross impeding any trade of Mayfield.
And the pressure on Berry to trade Mayfield has to do more with the calendar of the 2022 Browns season than any financial restraint he poses to the Browns.
The longer this drama continues, the bigger distraction Mayfield becomes to the process of the Browns implementing new quarterbacks Deshaun Watson and Jacoby Brissett into their team and offensive system. At the same time, Mayfield should be wanting to join his new team as soon as possible to undergo a similar assimilation and begin a re-set to his career.
While Mayfield conceivably would remain absent during the “voluntary” portion of the offseason program, a logical deadline for a trade – for both the Browns and Mayfield – would be June 14, which marks the start of the Browns’ mandatory minicamp.
Mayfield could be excused from reporting to that, or he might press the issue and show up to honor his contract. If he showed up, it would be awkward, distracting and simply continue the needless drama that has dominated the Browns’ 2022 offseason.
A trade well before that time undoubtedly is the best course of action for the Browns and for Mayfield.
So how does Berry make that happen?
Let’s get creative
After almost unprecedented quarterback movement in the NFL this year, the most logical landing spots for Mayfield are Seattle and Carolina. Mayfield would clearly be the best quarterback option for either team; he’s much better than their existing QBs under contract and surely better than either could do in the draft. But neither can justify accepting his $18.858 million contract and cap figure.
So Berry has to suck it up and agree to eat a portion of Mayfield’s contract. How big a portion depends on what Berry seeks to get in draft-pick compensation.
In my opinion, Berry should try to recover the third-round pick in 2023 that he included in the Watson mega-deal with the Texans. Asking for a 2023 pick should be more favorable to Seattle or Carolina. The Panthers already are without their second- and third-round picks in 2022 because of previous bad trades.
So the question is what financial value does Berry attach to a third-round pick in 2023. That would determine how much of Mayfield’s $18.858 million Berry is willing to eat.
There are a couple of precedents to consider.
In 2017, the Browns were willing to pick up Brock Osweiler’s $16 million guaranteed salary in a trade with the Texans for their second-round pick the following year. Berry was VP of player personnel in that regime, not the GM, but he no doubt contributed to the discussion of that NBA-like deal. (Future GM John Dorsey would turn that second-round pick into Nick Chubb, by the way.)
In 2021, the Panthers agreed to eat $7 million of Teddy Bridgewater’s $11 million salary in a trade to Denver for the Broncos’ sixth-round pick.
Now, despite his flaws , Mayfield is eminently better than Osweiler and Bridgewater were at the times of those respective deals. If I were Berry, I’d be willing to eat $12 million of Mayfield’s $18.858 million in exchange for a third-round pick in 2023.
The Browns would gain another $6.858 million in cap room in addition to retrieving the third-round pick lost in the Watson trade.
Mayfield’s new cap figure of $6.858 million would be much more affordable to Seattle or Carolina, who would inherit a motivated quarterback with a newer, bigger boulder on his shoulder, eager to jumpstart the restoration of his career.
“I’m having to prove myself again to earn that second contract,” Mayfield said.
It’s a win-win-win trade for the Browns, for Seattle or Carolina, and for Mayfield.
Get it done so we can all go on with our lives.
