How good does Baker Mayfield actually have to be to stay with Browns?

What are the other real alternatives?

The only way to negotiate to value is to compare Mayfield’s future contract to other real alternatives. The free agents scheduled to be available for 2021, with their 2020 salary in parentheses, are as follows:

Dak Prescott ($31.4 million), Jacoby Brissett ($27.9 million), Philip Rivers ($25 million), Mitchell Trubisky ($7.2 million), Ryan Fitzpatrick  ($5.5 million), Tyrod Taylor ($5.5 million), A.J. McCarron ($4 million), Andy Dalton ($3 million).

So, next time Mayfield throws an interception, and you tell all your other friends that Mayfield stinks and you want a new quarterback, who exactly do you have in mind? Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields are not options, and they are not going to trade up by offering a few backup players.

Outbidding the Cowboys for Dak Prescott might be an option, however, because the Cowboys’ salary cap is a mess and they cannot hope to outbid the Browns if finances are the only concern. Prescott may be tragically flawed by being overly loyal to Jerry Jones, however. It’s painful to see a man like Prescott, who seems like a truly high character individual that you cannot help but wish the best for, kept in a ridiculous soap opera we call the Dallas Cowboys.

Keep in mind that Jones would not give him an extension in his fourth year, threatened to fire all of his teammates over social justice issues, and strained the 2021 salary cap on stupid contracts to over-the-hill defenders. The Cowboys are going to be a bad team for several years. That place is a dysfunctional mess, but Dak seems to love being mistreated and it may not be possible to convince him to come to Cleveland just by using common sense and American greenbacks.

Keep in mind also that no one can be completely sure how the surgically-repaired ankle will hold up, but we are looking at five years and somewhere between $35 and $40 million dollars per year. This is the best alternative to Mayfield, but how good is this alternative, really?

Jacoby Brissett at $30 million per year and four or five years is also an option. He has thrown for 31 TDs and 13 INTs in his career and a passer rating of 84.4. Not great, clearly below average statistically, but not horrible, especially considering that the Colts offenses he played with were not particularly strong. Still, is that good enough for the Browns to want to bail on Mayfield and fall madly in love with Brissett?

Or do you want to go for a short term option in Philip Rivers, who will be 39, next year? He doesn’t have experience in the Stefanski offense. It seems like he should stay in Indianapolis if he wants to play another year.

Trubisky could be a great addition not as a first-string quarterback, but as a developmental backup based on the John Dorsey theory that a modern NFL team needs three strong quarterbacks, and the Bears’ bad offense was more to blame for his bad numbers in Chicago. Once again, remember that one of the reasons he was fired in Kansas City was that he drafted Patrick Mahomes when he already had a Pro Bowl quarterback in Alex Smith, and ownership could not understand why the team needed more than one good quarterback.

So, yes bring Trubisky to Cleveland if he will take $7 million per year to be a backup and start out potentially as a third-string. But don’t get confused with that process and think that it means the team is trying to get rid of Mayfield.

In the NFL draft, the Browns will be drafting about 20th, and they are so not going to draft Justin Fields or Trevor Lawrence. Please, no more “Franchise Quarterbacks” from the late first round, who the team is going to count on to be a day one starter.  That’s not reality. That’s the formula for ruining a young player’s career.

In summary, there are only a few premier alternatives for the Browns this off-season. Dak Prescott is the major obvious possibility, but there is a very strong possibility that he will stay in Arlington because he has been brainwashed into wanting to be a Cowboy all his life. He may not want to come to Cleveland. Depending on the condition of his ankle, his salary might be in the range of low $30s to high $30s of millions of dollars per year. Likely he will cost substantially more than Mayfield.

You can say that “Baker stinks” if you want, but the hard part of the equation is identifying how to replace him with a better quarterback that you can persuade to come to Cleveland for less money. Not so easy.

So back to the original question: How good does Baker Mayfield actually have to be to keep his job in Cleveland?

He doesn’t have to be a Hall of Famer, but he does have to belong on the list of the top 32 best quarterbacks in the NFL, and he has to be better than alternatives that are on the market or that are available by realistic trade or draft.

The superstar-or-nothing mentality, however, is off-base and unrealistic. Mayfield is not close to the top of the league at this point, but neither is he in much danger of being cut or traded.

The Browns should continue to draft and trade for quarterbacks with the idea of developing potential starting-caliber quarterbacks, two or three years from now. That process should never stop, and it does not mean that the first string quarterback is on his way out.