Cleveland Browns must unleash Baker Mayfield this week

Schrodinger’s Mayfield

It’s not that Mayfield isn’t the guy. We don’t know whether he is or not, because he simply hasn’t been given the chance to prove himself this season. You don’t know whether or not a young child can ride their bike until you let them try it without training wheels. The Browns are winning games and are on track to make the playoffs without relying on their quarterback. Can you become a sustainable contender like that? Probably not.

The Browns have six games left (plus potentially a wild card match) to make a decision on Mayfield’s option. To this point, there isn’t enough data to exercise it, so by default, they’re almost forced to decline it.

That does not mean they would be giving up on or moving on from Mayfield. It simply means he has not done enough to warrant committing that much money, which is an entirely fair assessment. He’ll get 2021 to prove himself with a “full offseason” under Stefanski and Alex Van Pelt. The cost of franchise tagging him following 2021 (assuming he plays well enough to earn keeping around) won’t be all that much different from what his option would be, and any premium the team would be paying at that point would be well worth having the extra year of evaluation.

But for now, the Browns need to expand Mayfield’s role. Let him play quarterback instead of glorified hand-offer. This week against a bad Jaguars team playing in Florida is a great opportunity to do that, assuming the weather somewhat cooperates.

Right now, the Browns have Schrodinger’s Mayfield; he both is and isn’t a franchise quarterback, and the team won’t know until they actually look.