(Photo: (AP Photograph/David Richard))

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- It's truly tough to believe we are here. I'm sitting downward trying to write this, trying to explain to you how 2021 bankrupt Baker Mayfield and potentially the Cleveland Browns' future. Yous can call that statement dramatic, simply the reality is the Browns are now questioning a position many in the industry started to feel had been solidified past the end of 2020's playoff run.

The platitude "quarterbacks get besides much of the credit and too much of the arraign" will always concur true with me. I'thou someone who values the nuance and process over the results. Nonetheless, this sport is not candy in a singular frame of reference. I view quarterback play differently than yous do, and you view it differently than me. Nosotros all bring our personal biases and experiences to the tabular array and then we form our opinion.

That deviation in consumption and analysis is why there is a clear split happening right now among those who support Mayfield through anything and those who feel the Browns title window is now and they can't permit another flavor of quarterback play happen as it did in 2021.

The root of the issue is that Mayfield has failed to exist the version you started to abound comfortable with at the cease of 2020. He was one of the cardinal reasons, from Week seven on, that the crime, and Mayfield, found success en route to a playoff advent.

This is what all quarterbacks hunt - consistent success. Find your all-time way to motion the football for your offense, your identity as a quarterback, and repeat that formula. For Mayfield it was simple - Kevin Stefanski'due south scheme keeps it that way for the quarterback. Above all else, brand the schemed throws, hit your downfield opportunities, manage the game without turnovers, and catechumen a handful of those "creation" plays when everything falls apart. Mayfield did most of this at a high level from 2020 Week 7 on, and information technology provided the light to a path forward after a disastrous 2019 and start to 2020.

While no bargain was struck in the offseason betwixt Mayfield and the Browns, they were conspicuously on the right path. Duplicate your success in isolated quarterback play in 2021 and the balance will have care of itself. The front office was starving for Mayfield to show that his formula was repeatable but the formula bankrupt downward early. Mayfield started strong in Kansas City earlier the concluding iii drives of the game concluded punt, punt, and an interception.

The Calendar week 17 loss in Pittsburgh, including nine sacks, was the type of ugly ending that manifested the erstwhile fear of change and has forced the states to await back and try to figure out if Mayfield is too far gone to come back from what is either just a lost twelvemonth or something more.

This article will tendency into the negative in Mayfield's game because in gild to figure out how he moves frontwards, we have to pinpoint what has gone wrong for the 4th year quarterback through his career and so far and in 2021 specifically.

In that location is proof Mayfield tin can find NFL success. There is recent tape of it. The problem remains in the consistency. He has to clean up these bug to move forrad every bit not simply the Browns' starter in 2022, but to re-establish himself as the future for the franchise at the position.