DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Baker vs the National Media

Not sure which thread or topic this should go under so I apologize to the Referees.

I’m just blown away by the extreme scrutiny and negativity that gets thrown Bakers way. Is being the number one pick by a regime that is no longer there really that big of a deal that no one outside of local cleveland media can give him any credit for helping this team reach a 6-3 record?

Am I ignorant in the fact that this is year one of a new system after 3 others systems in 2 years?

I guess in my opinion I think he’s doing a good job of progressing and minimizing his mistakes in comparison to last year.

Baker doesn't fit the narrative of Sucky Ass Cleveland and their Sucky Ass QBs. Therefore: Hate.

Baker is the most hated guy in sports, locally and nationally.

I listen to Ken Carmen in the mornings on my way into work. The narrative after every game, including wins, is whether Baker is the long term answer.

Nationally he is hated on by Cowherd, Orlovsky, Brandon Marshall, Damien Woody, Rex Ryan, Marcellus Wiley, Lavar Arrington, and there are probably ten or so others. Baker is a topic of discussion every day of the week on these shows. All negative.

Meanwhile, Darnold was ruined by the Jets and Lamar will learn and grow from his recent failures is the familiar narrative for those guys.

As a Browns fan I terribly want Baker to succeed because I'm a fanatic. I almost want him to succeed more just to shut these guys up. I've never seen one guy be such a punching bag.

Baker is very polarizing. He gets clicks and moves the needle when his name is mentioned. This sells ad space. That's why he's talked about so much.

Sam Darnold. Josh Allen. Very vanilla. Yawn to the audience.

Kyler Murray is a fantastic player. No drama to sell though.

Patrick Mahommes. Amazing player. How many hours can you fill a show saying, "Patrick Mahomes is really, really good"?

They don't really hate him. He makes their jobs easy. It's good tv/radio.

They probably do hate he's not taking the bait this year.

I definitely get it. He doesn't have the numbers, yet his team is loaded with talent, and now they seem to have a pretty good coach leading the way.

I don't want to just apologize for him completely, but this is his 3rd HC, 4 if you count GW in the interim. That's not good. How many HC's has Russell Wilson had? Kyler Murray in year two still has the same coach. You can look down the line and see a lot of correlation between good qb's and a limited number of HC's they have played under.

We are Browns fans, so if there is one thing we know very well, it's bad QB play. I don't think Baker is anywhere near that category. He's just not someone that we can really envision being the qb 5 years from now. Not saying he can't, but I think we all agree we need to see a little more.

I am hoping the Browns can find a way into a playoff spot. Get that playoff taste in their mouth, and go into 2021, year 2 with Kevin Stefanski, and if you don't start seeing Baker play better then? I think you start talking about drafting a guy to possibly take over. Long way to go, and I think Baker can 100% be better, I just don't know how much.

This might be taking us a little too far off-topic, but if we're moving on from Baker (before or after his extension), I see us going the FA route. This offense is built now. Can't be sure how long they'll be able to keep it together.

I definitely think they will look down that road, it's just tough to find someone who is good and available.

It's a tough spot to be in, and if nothing else, Baker is 100% helping pave the road for the next guy, if it ends up being that he isn't. If he doesn't work out, I don't think the whole organization is hitting the reset button, I think you can plug someone into this and keep going. With a vet, you're right, you can cut down on the rookie mistakes.

Yep, and I think Baker still has a lot of time to figure things out. He's done more than enough to keep things going, and it seems clear that the team is still behind him.

It's the fans just as much as the media too. People have made up their mind that they don't like him and want him to fail.
And he'll always be hated by OSU fans that aren't die-hard Browns fans, which is annoying here in C-Bus.

It seems to be a combination of . . .
Cockiness (If he shows confidence, even with no hint of arrogance, it's still interpreted as cockiness)
Body Language (Everyone thinks he looks like a d-bag. They still have the nerve to say Manziel 2.0, which is idiotic)
The Commercials (Mouth-breathers act like he's filming them in between games or something)
Dropped Balls (EVERY drop was a terribly inaccurate throw by Baker, never the receiver's fault)
Planting the Flag (They'll never forget. O-H! Blah-Blah!)
His drunken 21st B-Day (That's as dated as the burning Cuyahoga.)

But that's the crap a QB, especially a #1 pick in a title starved football city, has to deal with. They're not his enemy, he's his own enemy if he can't block it out.

Thanks for the thought out responses. I still fall back on the fact that this regime didn’t hire him so it’s not really fair to compare him as a number one. We all know if it was up to this regime he wouldn’t have gone at the top. They do have a tough path in front of them with the fifth year option and whether to pick it up or not. My guess is they wait until year 4 to make a real decision on his future. Plus the frustrating part of it as well is he had no choice being picked first overall. His draft grade had him much lower so it’s on Hue and Dorsey.

Seems to me the media takes the easy way out of it like what was said earlier about him being a polarizing figure.

That's a great point, about his draft position.

I think that plays into some of the hate, and expectation.

I know people complain about the commercials, and I get when he's playing bad, and they go to commercial and it's one of those progressive or hulu commercials, it's a bit cringey, but in my eyes, NFL guys are playing on borrowed time, and I cannot knock a guy for getting all the money he can. And like someone said, its not like hes missing meetings or practice to shoot these. They are likely shot in the spring and summer when he can't be in the building anyway.

I think he has handled his entire situation as well as he could. He owns it when he doesn't play well, he commends his teammates. He's great with the media.

He's just gonna have to play better over the next 365 days, because at this point next year, being a fringe playoff team ain't gonna be enough.

j/c

I think there are some people in the media who use Baker as a way to gain ratings. But thus far this year Baker has conducted himself very well. He hasn't created a lot of controversy.

I think the questions lie with his consistency or lack there of. At least it does for me. I do understand the circumstances and I make allowances for that. But let's be honest here, many of his performances do not scream franchise QB.

I compare it to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. When he drops back to throw you never know which QB you're going to get. In the Cincy game he looked like the second coming. Yet the very next week he went for 12-25 against the Raiders. He went 12-20 and 12-22 the following two weeks.

There are certainly legitimate questions about whether he is the long term answer at the QB position. The thing I find most amusing about this entire thing is how people view an objective look at this as "hate" and how they think there are Browns fans who "want him to fail".

That's the craziest thing I've ever heard. We've been looking for a franchise QB what seems like forever. Nothing could make people happier than to solve this problem for the long term. I know I would be thrilled to see Baker emerge as our long term franchise QB.

I don't see Baker as a failure and I don't see him as our franchise QB either. He's in sort of a limbo zone somewhere in between. He seems to be a great leader on the field and his team mates seem to love him. That's important. But until we some some consistency, no matter what anyone says, the jury is still out.

Baker's funny because he has all the makings and has done all of the things that great QBs have done, and he's also done all of the things that bad QBs have done.

He hasn't risen to Mahomes' level, even though he's had games like Mahomes, but he also hasn't sunk to the level where you expect a poor game, like with Weeden or McCoy.

At the same time, he's also not an Andy Dalton, where you feel like you know what you're going to get and it'll be okay, but not great or not terrible.

He's kind of on his own plane.

The one moniker he does need to shred, though, is that I think a lot of people expect poor performances from him against great teams. To get the monkey off his back, he needs to go out there and punch the proverbial gorilla in the face.

watching a lot of talking heads at the moment..

... cowherd's backed off on Baker a bit.... not a lot. When he can get in a shot he does. Earlier in the year, in the first Cincy game he tried to make the narrative that Burrow was better than Baker. But he's given a lot of credit to Stefanski for creating a system that is good for Baker.


I think Nick Wright has done a great job trying to get people to back off.


Baker is divisive.. He hasn't taken over the league like Mahomes has. And most people expect that number 1 overall to do so.

I feel like they forget that the dude's gone through 3-4 coaches already. You can't learn and grow in a problem like that.

As Baker becomes more comfortable and learns Stefanski's system, he'll become more effective IMO.

Why listen to Colin Cowherd?
Is it because he has a microphone in front of him?

( Mr. My Cousin Vinny, ready to give your opening statement? )

waking up: " Yeah everything that guy just said was bleep, thank you"

other lawyer Objection your honor!
Judge Chamberlain Howler:
" The councils' entire opening statement with the exception of Thank You, will be stricken from the record."

Look I says, Baker, is better than any of those names you mentioned including Mahommes, when he wants to be!
and if the circumstances and perhaps the game plans prevent that from being obvious except for on Occasions, Then So BE IT! But not any less True!

I don't know what people are thinking sometimes, (this is the point where I won't accuse them of inebriation but shoe on the other foot, folks say it about me a ton of times, boo ! )
I don't know what people are "thinking" but Baker is a Top 6 Qb in this league, and anyone
Nationally, who is saying he stinks, just wants the Browns to cut him so he can go to their favorite team and win that team Super Bowls!

WAKE UP CLEVELAND! How many times do you have to play the female dog?
GMA blanking Break! I just can't with the thinking.

Whether Baker becomes a franchise QB, ends up a good, but not great player or even a subpar starting QB, I feel as a fan I appreciate him for one thing.

I will be eternally grateful that I am no longer forced to endure that stupid QB jersey with all the Browns' starting QB names on it. Every single game, I wanted to throw a hammer through the tv.

I realize this is not asking much of him, but I still love that I don't have to see it anymore.

Baker is already a top 6 Qb in the league, just accept it. (And nobody has to list the other top qb's)

And the Qb Jersey will make it back one day, even if 20 years from now, because everyone eventually retires.

AND, we no longer have to hear over and over that Roethlisberger is the winningest Qb at Cleveland Browns Staium.

I think they should hammer the point home every home game for the next couple years.
He's already broke the record 3 or 4 times this year, depending on if you give him credit for the Jets game his 1st year, or if dumb broadcasters forget the details, or if he tied it or surpassed it, or if it were next week, or this week, or last week, pfft! It has become a legend! like the story of Bigfoot or leprechauns with free healthcare plans in their britches or something.

Thanks, I forgot that one. I look forward to when this team can get consistent and frequent respect league wide.

It was good to hear Jim Rome give him a lot of respect this morning. I agree though, the national media, for the most part, isn’t in Baker’s corner.

Jim has been on the Browns since 2018. He's been calling them America's team which is probably mostly to troll cowboy fans.

As far as Cowherd goes, I wish people would stop retweeting him and tweeting back at him. That is exactly what he wants. He doesn't care about being wrong, he cares about you paying attention to him, because that's what drives the needle. He's awful, and has horrible takes. Actually, the Baker stuff is pretty far down the list of horrible takes he's had over the years.

I must be a grudge holder because I have a hard time getting past how much of a jerk Rome was to Jim Everett late 80s, early 90s.

I don't really care about Everett but Rome kept calling him "Chris" in reference to Chris Everett, basically calling his a wuss. Rome said it several times and Jim E told him not to do it again and Rome did. Jim Everett started across the interview table to go after Rome.

Rome panicked out of fear and his eyes looked like that Detroit Piston heckling fan when Ron Artest of the Pacers came into the stands after him. Kind of showed how tough Jim Rome was not.

Not a Cowherd fan by any means but saw a video of him yesterday crowing about how Steelers nation should apologize to him because he's been saying they aren't that good.. He was smoking a cigar and said that he knew they weren't that good and that right now there are a number of better teams in the AFC and proceeded to list them and he started with the Browns.. I hated him a little less for a minute.

Ben should never win another game at CBS.

the jersey should just be retired. It loses it's meaning if you have 1 guy hold the spot for 10-15 years and play well with some success as Baker should.. archive it just like all of the other "The last time the Browns did this was...." references.

That whole video was even douchey for Cowherd.

Oh it absolutely was.. in large part because he doesn't do anything like that the 1000s of times when he's wrong..

But anybody who says the Browns are better than the Steelers in December.. he gets a pass this time.

Guys like Cowherd are on at their time slot for a reason. Dudes who are on in the middle of the day tend to provoke fan bases and athletes, because that's the only way people pay attention to them. Look at Skip with how he's been with LeBron. He's literally a comment troll that has his own tv show. It's amazing he's been on as long as he has, but these guys get off on fans chirping back at them.

Scott Van Pelt has the night time sportscenter which has turned into his own tv show, and he provokes nobody. Says a lot.

We can thank Jim Rome for all of this. He was the first one to become popular on a national scale using this M.O.

Jim Rome is still alive?!?!? And he has a radio show?!?!?

My point is that he's the one who initiated such behavior.