Cleveland Browns Baker Mayfield deserves a Colin Cowherd apology
By Mike Lukas
Colin Cowherd has been highly critical of Baker Mayfield, but he owes the Cleveland Browns No. 1 pick an apology because he was wrong about his talent
I jumped aboard the Baker Mayfield bandwagon about eight months ago while writing Cleveland Browns: Include Baker Mayfield in the QB draft debate for DPD.
At the time, plenty of NFL talking heads doubted Mayfield because of his 6-foot-one-ish height.
A lot of them were pretty ruthless about it, too, the guiltiest of them being sports TV/Radio and renown blabberhead Colin Cowherd.
On June 19, Cowherd tweeted…
Marginal size and athleticism isn’t a NUMBER ONE pick. In any draft. In any sport. https://t.co/U74000ndM2
— Colin Cowherd (@ColinCowherd) June 19, 2018
…to which Mayfield replied:
Well it happened bud. Have a nice day!
— Baker Mayfield (@bakermayfield) June 19, 2018
From that point forward on his show, The Herd, Cowherd persistently trashed Mayfield as being an unworthy number one overall pick, especially compared with his personal favorite rookies, the larger-sized Sam Darnold and Josh Rosen.
247Sports.com reported Cowherd as saying,
"“Where’s the wow with Baker Mayfield? … He looked small … I don’t want my No. 1 pick to look small regardless of position.”"
Finally, Mayfield and Cowherd confronted each other on The Herd, as now seen on YouTube. By all accounts, Baker won the face-to-face by fearlessly confronting Cowherd point-by-point and by owning his mistakes, his honest and confident demeanor non-threatening and without denial as he called out Cowherd’s petty critiques, making his negative attacker look like a condescending old fool.
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It became obvious who the smaller man was.
But that was talk, back when nobody thought Mayfield would even take a single snap all season.
My, how things have changed.
Baker’s the man now, he’s scoring touchdowns, setting Browns records, winning multiple rookie-of-the-week awards, winning games for a winless team and giving an entire Cleveland fan base desperate for positive news something to believe in and hope for again.
In other words, he’s doing everything you’d expect a number one overall pick to do.
Seems ridiculous now, thinking about Cowherd asking, “Where’s the wow with Baker Mayfield?”
Uh, Mayfield just threw three touchdowns to beat the Falcons and four touchdowns to beat the Bengals and in those two games had passer ratings of 151.2 and 143.9 with not one interception and zero sacks.
That ‘wow’ enough for you, Colin?
Especially when you compare Mayfield’s stats to Cowherd’s preferred rookie picks for overall number one, Sam Darnold and Josh Rosen.
Total Passing Yards? Darnold: 1,934; Rosen 1,521; Mayfield 2,242.
Touchdowns? Darnold: 11; Rosen 10; Mayfield 17.
Interceptions? Darnold: 14; Rosen 11; Mayfield 7.
Wins? Darnold: 3; Rosen: 2; Mayfield: 4 and counting.
Admit it, Colin, Mayfield has totally outplayed and outshone your bigger boys.
It comes down to this – Cowherd was publicly wrong about Baker Mayfield and completely rude about his size, and if Cowherd were any kind of a man, he’d invite Mayfield back on his show and publicly apologize.
That would earn some respect.
Next. Studs and duds from Week 12. dark
That’s what adults do when they’re wrong, Colin, they admit it to your face and apologize for being rude about it.
Otherwise, it’s gotta make you wonder, “Where’s the wow with Colin Cowherd?”