Myles Garrett: Relationship with Baker Mayfield was ‘slightly complicated’; rooting for him but ‘I’ve got to take him out’BEREA, Ohio — Myles Garrett received a nice text from Baker Mayfield after he was traded to the Panthers, but decided not to respond.
“He said he appreciated the time we got to spend together and getting to know each other and growing together,” Garrett told cleveland.com in a one-on-one interview last week. “I really I didn’t say anything. I didn’t really have much to say and I didn’t know how reply to it, so I didn’t.”
Garrett’s non-response came after four years of ups and downs between the two that didn’t end on the best of notes. By that end of last season, both were ready to be playing for different teams and calling it a day. The two former No. 1 overall picks will meet on the field Sunday in Carolina, with Mayfield starting for the Panthers and Garrett trying to prevent him from getting the satisfaction of beating his former team.
“I read (the text) but you know, there were some disagreements we had at a base level and I’m not mad at the guy or feeling any way towards it, but I just didn’t know how to reply to that, so I didn’t,” Garrett said. “But I still think he’s a hell of a competitor and he’s a great guy to have on your side and I’m rooting for him. I think he has a great family, but he’s the opposition now, and at the end of the day, I’ve got to take him out.”
Garrett didn’t mean that literally, of course, but did acknowledge a couple of weeks ago that if he can get a couple of sacks while putting his team in position to win, “I would kind of enjoy that too.”
The disconnect between the two seemed to be there from the start, in part because of their different personalities and leadership styles. Mayfield, the No. 1 overall pick in 2018, was brash, vocal and gregarious. Garrett, the No. 1 overall pick in 2017, was relatively quiet and a bit of a loner at first who didn’t engage with his teammates as much as he has the past couple of years. It was perceived by some, including Mayfield, a source said, as a lack of strong leadership by the ultimate Alpha Dawg on defense.
It came to a head during Garrett’s helmet incident with Mason Rudolph in 2019 when Mayfield spoke out against Garrett on national TV., and the two had to work through it. It ramped up again last season when Garrett was upset about the departure of his close friend Odell Beckham Jr., and Mayfield’s role in it. Garrett was vocal about the fact that Browns management didn’t consult with the players to get their input on the rift between QB1 and his star receiver.
As the season went along and the losses mounted, the chasm between Mayfield and Garrett widened to the point where Garrett felt something had to change for the 2022 season, whatever that might be. The Browns finished 8-9 and out of the playoffs despite star players such as Garrett, Denzel Ward and Nick Chubb being in the prime of their careers. Garrett set the bar extremely high for everyone in the organization last season — at a championship level — and spoke up if he saw something he didn’t like, whether it involved a teammate, coach or member of the front office.
Some players were also dismayed that Mayfield, suffering from a torn labrum in his left non-throwing shoulder since Week 2, took himself out of the season finale against the Bengals after consulting with his agent and members of his management team. Safety John Johnson III noted this week that he came back off of injury for that meaningless game to be there for his teammates, saying “it’s just the character” and surmising that perhaps Mayfield was just too banged up to go.
“It never is (easy),” Garrett said of working alongside Mayfield over the years. “Winning takes a lot. It’s not going to be easy come, easy go. Except for one of the Warriors teams, but I think it’s always tough. It’s always mentally straining.
“Guys are going to say and do things that they wouldn’t normally do and they’re going to listen and be receptive to things they haven’t normally done or have to do. So it was a slightly complicated relationship, but that’s how it is each year. There are new guys coming in, old guys coming in and same thing. Some guys who just came are going out, but you have to keep that same standard and you have to bring that same intensity year to year.”
The relationship may never have been the same after the helmet incident, when Mayfield told Fox Sports’ Erin Andrews on national television after the game that Garrett’s actions were “inexcusable” and that he “hurt this team.”
Former Browns defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson, shown the video clip by fellow defensive lineman Olivier Vernon, made a beeline to Mayfield in the locker room and handled it according to old-school locker room rules.
“I just said, ‘If you ever made a mistake, would you want your brothers who you look at every day, day in and day out to sit here and go against you and make you feel some type of way and like you can’t come back from it type deal?’” Richardson told cleveland.com last summer. “I said, ‘Don’t let the media and the celebrity part of being a football player get in the way of being an actual brother to your teammates. Right, wrong or indifferent, if it’s a situation that’s too bad for you to not comment on, you’re better off saying nothing at all.’”
Mayfield approached Garrett a few days later and told him he wanted him back on the team after what proved to be a six-game suspension to close out the 2019 season.
“He’s proud to have me on this team and I’m proud to have him as my quarterback on this team,” Garrett told cleveland.com before last season.
Last week, Garrett reiterated that he did, indeed, let it go.
“I’m not one to hold a grudge, so at the end of the day, it was about coming back in, earning the respect of my peers again and trying to get back to the plateau I was at and ascend higher,” he said.
The two players pulled together in 2020 and presented a united front, leading their respective sides of the ball and guiding the Browns to their first playoff berth in 18 years and their first playoff victory in 26. A photo of them body-bumping in the air after the 48-37 wild-card victory over Pittsburgh captured the essence of the two No. 1 overall picks leading the Browns to success.
But it all unraveled last season, and there is no great love lost between the two.
Garrett even told cleveland.com that the Browns will use Mayfield’s quote to NFL Network’s Cynthia Frelund about his former team that ‘I’m going to (expletive) them up” as motivation. Mayfield has denied saying it.
“We’ve known he has that type of demeanor and that attitude, and for better or for worse, it works for him,” Garrett said. “And I’m not mad at him using that fire and that chip on his shoulder to help him play to the level he has. He’s been successful in what he’s done.’’
Garrett watched Mayfield operate like that in their four years together, so he wasn’t surprised.
“Talking like that and moving the way he does, it’s worked for him,” he said. “He uses that for fire, for motivation and I think speaking like that helps amp him up.”
But, he noted, “it does the same for us as well. We’ll take it and we’ll use it, and hoping for a great matchup. I don’t think any less of him because he’s going out there and doing the same thing he did when he was with us. He’s the same guy personally, and maybe we’ll see a different Baker when we get on the field. Who knows?”
But if they don’t embrace on the field after the game, it won’t be a huge surprise.
https://www.cleveland.com/browns/20...for-him-but-ive-got-to-take-him-out.html
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that last bit win's the internet this week.
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