Baker Mayfield Has Finally Become Everything the Browns Hoped He Would Be

The Browns endured a miserable stretch nearly unmatched for any professional franchise.But now they have Mayfield, an elite distributor aligned with Coach of the Year candidate Kevin Stefanski, who plays to the young signal-caller's strengths. Then, everything fell apart and Mayfield's viability as the franchise's long-term starter came under fire.In his first season as head coach, Freddie Kitchens was in over his head. What looked like a potential mismatch on paper turned into another checkmark in Mayfield's favor.As Trotter noted, Mayfield had career-best stats of 12-of-13 passing and 10.5 yards per attempt against the Giants' blitz packages. During Cleveland's Week 12 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars, Mayfield provided one of the worst throws of the entire season by any quarterback when he missed a wide-open Rashard Higgins in the end zone. "I said 'Baker Mayfield is your franchise quarterback and you need to fully commit to him,'" Stanton told owner Jimmy Haslam in the veteran's exit interview last year. You drafted this kid first overall and it's well documented the number of quarterbacks that have come through there and started games for the Cleveland Browns."Well, Haslam and everyone else now know what the Browns have in Mayfield: a franchise quarterback.