The Cleveland Browns will see an active Baker Mayfield in Week 1 of the 2022 NFL regular season. He’ll be on the opposite sideline, waiting to take revenge as the presumptive starting quarterback of the Carolina Panthers.
Mayfield’s association with the team that drafted him first overall in 2018 reportedly ended Wednesday after Cleveland shipped him to the NFC. In exchange, the Browns will receive a 2023 fifth-round draft pick that could become a fourth rounder based on playing time. It’s a move that gives Carolina head coach Matt Rhule his latest veteran reclamation project behind center and gives the NFL a surprising must-watch game on opening weekend when the Panthers host Mayfield’s former team.
Details on Baker Mayfield to the #Panthers, via sources: The #Browns receive a fifth-round pick that can convert to a fourth-rounder based on playing time.
— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) July 6, 2022
It’s an unsurprising move. Cleveland was done with Mayfield the moment reports leaked the franchise wanted “an adult” at quarterback. Their trade for Deshaun Watson — who was facing more than 20 accusations of sexual misconduct at the time — merely cemented this.
The Browns attempted to sell high on their former franchise cornerstone this offseason, holding him through the 2022 Draft as needy teams acquired passers and impressively misunderstanding the idea of leverage in the process. In the end, a Day 3 pick for a player who was hurt throughout 2021, had no place on the roster in 2022 and ranks 25th among 33 eligible QBs in expected points added since entering the league four years ago still somehow qualifies as decent value.
It’s still not a win for Cleveland, however. This trade doesn’t fix anything for a broken Browns team in 2022. Watson, given a fully guaranteed $230 million contract extension after landing in Ohio, is still staring down a sizable league-mandated suspension for his alleged predatory behavior.
Mayfield’s deal clears some of his salary from the books, but he’s still owed more than $10 million from Cleveland as part of the deal. Since the Browns already had a league-high $40 million in cap space to begin with, per Over The Cap, it’s tough to see how any savings really makes a major difference.
Presumptive starter Jacoby Brissett is a reasonable backup but has just a 75.2 passer rating since a knee injury sapped his effectiveness for a punchy Colts team in 2019. His record as a starter since then is just 4-8.
Getting a possible fourth round pick back for Mayfield doesn’t shore up an understaffed wide receiver depth chart led by Amari Cooper (good) and further topped by Donovan Peoples-Jones and David Bell (… less good). It doesn’t fix a tight end group desperate enough for production that it laid a $10 million franchise tag bet on former first round pick David Njoku even though he’s averaged 22.1 receiving yards per game over the last three seasons.
A struggling offense threatens to wipe out the gains of a rising young defense. Cleveland rose from 25th to 11th in defensive DVOA between 2020 and 2021, but still won three fewer games because an injured Mayfield couldn’t produce the meager returns needed to push the Browns back to the postseason. Now that burden falls onto Brissett, who averaged 0.025 expected points added per play in 2021 (31st among 37 qualified passers) vs. Mayfield’s 0.048 (25th).
This trade relieves Cleveland of one headache that was already starting to fade while the others remain. The foundation of a good team is here, and management has moved mountains in hopes of keeping it that way. Shipping Mayfield out isn’t that — it’s not even something that will help the team this fall. 2022 still looks like a lost year for the Browns, which is only great news for the Houston Texans team that holds their 2023 first round pick.
And now, thoughts on the Panthers: