DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Browns Exercise 5th-Year Options On Mayfield and Ward

Boom ! Never any doubt

Wow! I saw that coming!

Nope. Didn't make much sense to not do so.

Thumbs up for both NOW lets Get Chubb signed

I would at least sign the quarterback to a very lucrative deal.

If he busts in a couple years ala Wentz, so be it, but make him ours and do it now.

why would they do such a thing!!?!? we have never had to do anything like this before. Stupid front office!

Wow, I didn't even know it was possible to extend a QB

Or to have him in Cleveland for 5 months ..... let alone years.

If we can. We might be a little short of money unless Baker doesn't want any or much as a signing bonus. I believe any signing binus would count against this year.

There would be ways to get him money after the new season starts next March. We might have enough in the way of money to get a deal done with Chubb and give him a signing bonus this season.

wait... their shelf life is LONGER than milk's???

Must be. Milk hasn't been here in a long time.

I don't believe that a salary/signing bonus charges against the cap until the new contract begins.

Solves that

And of course Cowpie has to put his own two cents in...

This is the same guy who argued that you can't pay QBs much percentage of their contract in order to win a superbowl. Dude is absurd...

That's exactly what the Browns did with Garrett. Exercised the 5th year option then signed a longer term deal... I suspect that's whats going to happen with Baker.. Not sure about Ward.. We'll see.. He gets hurt

We gotta get that guy!

"We might be a little short of money unless Baker doesn't want any or much as a signing bonus."

When I saw that the NFL teams, team share of the T.V. deals.
have fluctuated between 140 million, to closer to a third of a billion dollars, per year,... over the last several 15ish years.

I think, if an NFL owner is short of money, they're probably looking at themselves as the problem.

We just got better. No injuries allowed beyond this point! Get some wins!

I agree on Ward. That will be a wait and see.

yeah... happy to see it but not surprised at all.... hope to lock him up long term

Good move on both.

Late to the party here, but this is good news (and a good sign for our franchise)

It was a no-brainer decision.

The opposing fan perception of Baker is still mindboggling.

A lot of opposing team's fans consider Baker to still be Johnny 2.0, lacking leadership and that we have a hole at QB and we won't win until we get a new one.

Baker is one of the best leaders in the game. Do people not watch the Browns or something?

I've even made a bet with someone that Baker will throw over 28+ TDs (his number not mine) this season. He thinks he has the bet in the bag. I would have put the number closer to 30. But the guy honestly believes Baker won't have 28 touchdown passes. I think I'll win around the 12th game mark. On top of that there's 17 games in case I don't.

What am I missing? Is he just still getting disrespected? Am I overrating him (can't be)? A little of both?

To your point, there are many talking heads (who's job is to know the landscape of the NFL) that don't know the Browns at all (who they've released, who they've picked up, the situation over the past few years, etc). So I wouldn't say your buddy not knowing is out of realm of possibility.

I think Baker still has more to prove, but I'm pretty confident. The wheels will really need to come off for us to take a step back this year.

Probably a little of the "Same Old Browns" syndrome. Sort of the same as Battered Fan Syndrome if you support the Browns.

I think fans of other teams probably have the following memory / thought process in their head:

1. Rookie Baker looks like a world beater. Maybe the Browns turned a corner.
2. Year 2 Baker was woeful - it was a flash in the pan. Baker is a bust like so many others.
3. Year 3 Baker - meh, he was awful for a while at the beginning of the season, the Browns won off the back of Hunt and Chubb. Baker is holding the team back, look at his stats.
4. Year 4. Until you replace Baker who is clearly holding the team back based on year 2 and struggles last year - Browns won't do much.

I mean we had Browns fans who watch the game give up on Baker. They dismissed the impact of Freddie. They dismissed the impact of 4 OC's in 3 years. We had posters claiming the OL (pre Wills and Conklin) was above average and all the issues were Baker. . . . no wonder other fans who don't pay attention so much thought the same or worse.

Like always I prefer the Browns to be under appreciated in the media, under hyped and given the 'yeah but it's the Browns' treatment. We'll see what happens and if we are the pre-season media darlings ... even if we are, I expect Stefanski to keep em grounded and focused.

Whether or not he was that guy was still being debated on here halfway through this past season. Us fans that follow closely have all finally seen and agreed that he's The Man; it'll take a little while for that same perception to trickle out to those that don't follow us as closely.

I would think just the fact that we made the playoffs, let alone won a game, would be enough to realize Baker is not Johnny 2.0. Even casual fans realize we made the playoffs?

At any rate, let them think what they want. I have fairly regular exposure to both PIT and CIN fans and I can tell you that they figure anyone who puts on our uniform is a bum. I think it makes them feel better. For years I heard from PIT fans how overrated Haden was, but then when PIT signed him those same people said he has elite, perennial Pro Bowl level skills.

I will take investment advice from my dog before I treat what other fans say about our players as credible. There are exceptions of course (not on the investment advice).

So it's pretty much we are who we've been and our players will be awful until proven otherwise, and even if proven we are probably still terrible and just got lucky.

And here I thought we were flying under the radar last season only to learn we are also flying under the radar this season as well.

I should've said that the Johnny 2.0 stuff is indeed, ridiculous. IMO, that's not even worth discussing... as anyone that still believes that has to be woefully and willfully mis-informed. Just the fact that he fessed his contribution to the 2019 disaster is enough to dispel any Johnny comparisons.

That said, there's a big difference between no longer being compared to a top10 bust in NFL history, and being The Man. IMO, his game is basically back to where it was heading into 2019 (probably better than that, but I think you get what I'm saying). He's gotta show some consistency from season to season. Obviously, consistency in coaching and scheme between 2 seasons is going to help like no other, but he still has to go out there and show it.

Ok. I mean I get it.

I get recognizing how he's evolved and still wanting him to show something before anointing him the next greatest quarterback.

I also get those (like me) who saw a star in college and knows he's going to be great and he's going to lead a team to a or multiple super bowl wins.

I don't get the ones who call him a terrible leader and still gives off that Johnny vibe. These are the ones who will always say he will suck and if he has a good season it's because of his supporting cast, the coaches and how everyone made it sooooo easy for him. Yet those are the same ones who say he sucked in 2019 and coaching had very little to do with it.


I guess I shouldn't get worked up about it. But I can see where he gets his motivation. I'm fired up.

I think a lot of it has to do with the mitigating factors that have surrounded our team since Baker came here that make a difference in the perception of who Mayfield is and who Mayfield isn't.

We've all seen the coaching carousel and the ever changing systems that Baker has had to deal with. We've witnessed the flashes even when he was going through those changes. We witnessed the steady improvement as the season went on last year. We witnessed him get more and more comfortable within Stefanski's system. We understand that the stability of going into his second season within that same system should net us similar or even better results than the last half of the 2020 season.

Fans of other teams don't have the luxury of following opposing teams that closely. For those of them who do make such an effort, I believe they do understand the talent Baker possesses. Many of those in the national media who actually apply themselves to the craft are seeing who and what Baker is. As time has gone on more and more of them see him in a favorable light.

I actually see people downplaying his ability as a positive thing. While I'm not trying to use Baker as an example here, often times people who feel they have something left to prove work so much harder to prove something than those who think they have made it. It serves as a motivating factor.

I think we may be flying under the radar to many NFL fans. I don't think we're flying under the radar to the coaching staff of other teams.

Could you ask your dog if I should invest in Chewy?

She approves

My dog says that the time to invest in chewy.com was when they split from Petsmart. He says that their stock went up quite quickly, peaking in mid-January, (around $112/share) and then settling back into a still overpriced $80/share ... but what does he know? He's only a 3 year old dog.

I reckon it all depends on who the audience is.


We've been bad for 20 years.
We've had years where we APPEARED to get good, but then we'd blow up the following season.
MANY of our games last season were FAR from decisive wins.
We were far from consistent in our ability to do things.
We didn't beat any teams with a winning record until, what... the Pittsburgh games?
We backed into the playoffs with help from other teams - as the 7th seed, something that has never existed before, so in any normal year, we would have been outside looking in.
Sure, we trounced Pittsburgh in the playoffs, but that was a shadow of who they normally are. The defense was decimated and the offense was hobbled... and they still almost pulled off a comeback.
Sure, we took Kansas City to the wire, but we needed Mahommes to exit the game to get it there, and then we STILL blew it to Case Keenum.
Lamar Jackson made us look like fools each time we played them.
Every time we got a big opportunity to put our destiny in our own hands, we wilted; until that final game of the season... and Pittsburgh was resting half their starters.


Read through all of that, not as a Browns fan but from the detached viewpoint of a casual fan of some other team. It doesn't matter that WE know what we've got going on here... we haven't earned ANYTHING, yet. We did it once. You aren't Good until you do it consistently and without doubts or caveats.