Baker Mayfield is walking into a very different Cleveland than the one he left behind.
That’s the reality for the Browns’ former No. 1 overall pick, who will face his old team on Sept. 20 in Florida when Tampa Bay and Cleveland meet as two winless teams trying to shake off rough starts. It’s only the second time Mayfield has seen the Browns since they moved on from him in 2022, and this one carries a different kind of edge. He says the focus is less on the reunion and more on keeping his own operation clean.
"Yeah, I think anytime, as I've mentioned to you guys, there's history between a franchise, a coaching staff, anybody, there's always, you want to come out on the winning side of that no matter what," Mayfield told reporters in the Tampa area Sept. 16.
"But yeah, I spent four years there. I'm going into year four here, so I started my career there.
A lot of ups and downs. But yeah, for me, this week is doing the little things right, continuing to try and just place the ball where it needs to go.
And then obviously making the things and corrections I need to and ball security."
That last part matters after a shaky opener for the Buccaneers. In a 33-27 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, Mayfield lost three fumbles, and those giveaways turned into 17 Cincinnati points. Still, he was productive through the air and on the ground, throwing for 216 yards on 23-of-28 passing while adding five carries for 30 yards and a touchdown.
The game came on the heels of a major payday. Mayfield signed a three-year, $165-million extension with $150 million guaranteed, a deal he did not get from Cleveland before the Browns shipped him out in 2022. That contract also put a fresh spotlight on the chip he has carried for years.
"I haven't updated that thing in a long time," Mayfield told Tampa-area reporters at the press conference to announce the extension. "There was a time and point where I used a lot of that negative stuff to fuel me. But you know I found a fire within."
That fire looked a lot dimmer after Cleveland sent him to Carolina, where things unraveled fast. The Panthers released him on Dec. 5, 2022, and he landed with the Los Angeles Rams the next day. That stop, under Sean McVay and then-offensive coordinator Liam Coen, gave him a month in what the source described as a rehab center for quarterback play.
Since arriving in Tampa in 2023, Mayfield has rebuilt his career and helped the Buccaneers win two NFC South titles. But there was another path that almost happened, one that would have sent him to Baltimore and reunited him with Todd Monken, now the Browns head coach.
"It was only four years ago when I was in Baltimore, we thought he was coming there to be our backup," Monken said Sept. 16, "and the Bucs signed him, and the good Lord put that in place for him, and he has taken advantage of that. We thought after Carolina and the Rams he was going to come to Baltimore, and I was fired up about it.
And the good Lord put him in Tampa, and this is his fourth coordinator. That’s hard, man.
He’s been the one constant playing there and has played at an elite level.”
Cleveland, though, had already decided it had seen enough. As the end of Mayfield’s rookie deal approached after the 2021 season, the Browns believed he couldn’t get them to the Super Bowl level they wanted, and they traded for Deshaun Watson in March 2022. Mayfield had some highs in Cleveland - including the 2020 playoff run that featured a wild-card win over the Pittsburgh Steelers and a close call against the Kansas City Chiefs in the divisional round - but the inconsistency, turnovers and shoulder injury in 2021 made the relationship unravel.
The off-field noise only added to the tension, including the back-and-forth with Odell Beckham Jr. in 2021 that ended with Beckham’s release and part of the locker room turning on Mayfield.
Even so, he doesn’t sound interested in revisiting the wreckage. More than a few faces are gone now, with only Denzel Ward and Grant Delpit remaining from the 2021 roster, and Mayfield says that changes how the old place feels.
"Yeah. I mean, with any experience, there's ups and downs, good and bad," Mayfield said.
"Ultimately, you remember the good more so than the bad. Yeah, it's first time having a playoff win since '94 there, and going on the road and doing it in Pittsburgh.
So it's a lot of good memories there. A lot of teammates that are friends for life.
But like I said earlier, it's a very different building now."
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