Baker Mayfield should take high road with Tony Grossi

Baker Mayfield walked away from a press conference due to a frustrating Tony Grossi question but the Cleveland Browns quarterback should take a different approach

Let’s get one thing out of the way first — Baker Mayfield did nothing wrong when he walked out of the presser on Wednesday. Tony Grossi was frustrating him with the questions and the Cleveland Browns quarterback is well within his right to walk away when he feels disrespected. And in this instance, that’s how he felt.

However, he still handled it wrong. By showing the frustration, he gave Grossi exactly what he wanted. When Mayfield began to answer Grossi’s question, the reporter started to cut him off and wouldn’t allow him to answer — which is proof he didn’t want to know what the signal-caller had to say, but was instead trying to frustrate him.

He then threw a dig at Mayfield, asking him if he was unhappy with a drive at the end of the half that resulted in no points. Clearly, anyone who knows Baker will understand he’s not satisfied with any drive unless it ends in a touchdown.

Heck, even Grossi knew the answer to the question. He also knew that Mayfield would take offense to it. Which is why it was asked. And it’s also why Baker should have simply ignored him.

Sure, Cleveland fans love it. I mean, Grossi has been frustrating them for years and Mayfield has had no problem putting him in his place.

But in doing so, he’s feeding right into what Grossi wants — which is to make Mayfield look bad. It won’t work outside of the loyal fan base but Grossi wants to be right in his assessment on Baker from last season.

You know, back when he basically said he would retire if the team drafted the Oklahoma product.

Clearly, Grossi isn’t going anywhere so the least he can do is poke the bear and hope it proves him right. He did that here as everyone else was asking questions about the upcoming game in Denver and Grossi wanted to pick at the scab from their latest loss. And of course, none of that will be included in the Baker bashing that will follow from this exchange.

So for Mayfield, he would do better to continually ask Grossi whether or not he’s retired yet. It would get under the reporters skin and he can ignore his questions by reflecting the attention back to the man who is trying to get the heated response.