Cleveland Browns: Take Colin Cowherd with a grain of salt

Colin Cowherd knows how to rile up Cleveland Browns fans

There is absolutely no love lost between Fox Sports’ Colin Cowherd and Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield.

Since Mayfield was drafted with the first overall pick in the 2018 NFL draft, nobody in the national media has been more critical of him than Cowherd. In June of the same year he was drafted, Mayfield appeared on The Herd with Colin Cowherd where the two went back and forth in an interview. Mayfield wore a sweatshirt that said “Undraftable” on it, in reference to comments Cowherd had made about him. Cowherd loved it.

Cowherd questioned some of the things he had been highly critical of Mayfield before the Browns drafted him first overall. Mayfield didn’t flinch and answered each question thrown at him with respectful answers.

Over the past three-plus years, Cowherd has continued his criticism of Mayfield, and some of the times, his criticisms were correct. Before the 2020 season, many, Cowherd included, questioned Mayfield’s maturity. The Browns signal-caller used to go back and forth with media members and didn’t handle it in the best way.

In 2020, we saw little jabs at the likes of Cowherd among others, but in a playful manner, such as flipping his hat backward during the postgame press conference after the Browns beat the Steelers in the playoffs. Cowherd predicted the Steelers to win as he does not like quarterbacks who wear their hats backward. Mayfield was able to shut out the outside noise and focus on what and who was in his building with him and what he could do on the field.

On Tuesday’s edition of The Herd with Colin Cowherd, the host was at it again when it came to Mayfield. He played the game “Baker or the Field” where his co-host Joy Taylor would ask who Cowherd would take over the next five years; Mayfield or 17 other quarterbacks. Of those 17 quarterbacks, Cowherd took Mayfield over Ben Roethlisberger, Tua Tagovailoa, Mitchell Trubisky, and Jared Goff.

Naturally, this set Browns Twitter into a frenzy with various members of the fan base coming for Cowherd’s head. If you are one of the ones who disagreed with Cowherd, either from Tuesday’s show or over the last three years when it comes to Mayfield, that’s completely fine. If you agree with anything he has said regarding Mayfield, that’s completely fine as well. We are all entitled to our own opinions after all.

Having said that, fans never want to hear bad things said about their players, especially fan bases as passionate as the Browns. When it is someone like Cowherd, fans want to pick him apart and tell them how wrong he has been. For the most part, Browns fans dislike Cowherd’s assessments of Mayfield. However, he isn’t always wrong in his assessments.

Cowherd has been in the sports media world for nearly 30 years and has built quite the resume. He’s very good at what he does, whether you agree with his takes or not. His job is to discuss sports in a manner in which people tune into his show to hear what he has to say and then proceed to discuss on social media or elsewhere. He speaks so that you react. And like it or not, he is right more often than he is wrong.

When it comes to Browns fans, they take what he says a little bit to heart, as the franchise is seemingly turning things around after two decades of mostly misery with Mayfield at the forefront. The fan base is arguably the most passionate in all of sports, not just the NFL. When the fans get bent out of shape over Cowherd’s critical opinions, it strengthens his statement of “Cleveland has low self-esteem.” The more you feed into his takes, the more ammunition you give him.

At the end of the day, take anything Cowherd says about the Mayfield or the Browns with a grain of salt. He’s not the general manager of the Browns, so any of his assessments of Mayfield or the Browns organization, are just that, assessments.