Sorry, but there's no part of me that believes you actually want to see Mayfield succeed. You seem to completely discount any possibility that his injuries are adversely affecting his performance. And I'm sure you'll roll out the whole "Stefanski says he's fine, Baker says he's fine, so what's the problem, he just sucks regardless" mantra.
It just might be more complicated than "he just sucks, period" as you are always eager to point out.
I'm not quite sure how to break this to you this... but Baker Mayfield has sucked this season. That's just a stone cold fact.
Is he hurt? Obviously yes. Is that negatively impacting his play? Most likely. But the fact of the matter is, Baker Mayfield is out there on the field every week. And if he's healthy enough to get on the field, then we have no choice but to hold him to the standard that he's healthy enough to play to the best of his ability. You don't have to agree with that, but that's just how I feel about any player, not just Baker. There's no excuses. If you're out there, the expectation is that you will play to the best of your ability. If a player can't do that, if we should
expect far less than their best because of their injuries, then they should sit out.
But regardless of the reasons why, Baker has simply not played well enough for the team to win at the highest levels. Not this year, and candidly not last year either. You might not like it, but I'm genuinely not doing anything other than pointing out that fact and subsequently expressing my frustration with that fact.
Do you know why I'm frustrated with it? Because I want the Cleveland Browns to win the Super Bowl. That's all I care about. The only reason I follow sports at all is because I want to see the teams I enjoy rooting for succeed at the absolute highest levels possible.
I believe Kevin Stefanski as a head coach is more than good enough to win the Super Bowl. I believe Andrew Berry as a general manager is more than good enough to win the Super Bowl. I do not believe Baker Mayfield is a good enough quarterback to win the Super Bowl, injuries or not.
I do like Baker. I had very high expectations for him as the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. Candidly, I was
much higher on him during the pre-draft process than most of the people on this board were. Feel free to check the first several pages of this thread or the "2018 draft prospects" thread and you'll see that to be the case.
And look, I was optimistic Baker would build off last year, particularly the last six games and into the playoffs, and continue to improve. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened for a variety of reasons. Some are injury related, but some are not. I'm just not comfortable blindly writing off this season's struggles with "oh well, he'll be fine when he's healthy" either. I simply do not believe that is a smart thing for the Browns or the fans to assume.
I completely understand the idea of Baker
not being the guy is something a lot of people on this board really don't want to have to swallow because we have been so quarterback starved as a fan base for so long. But at the end of the day this is a results business. "Better than what we've had" is not good enough. "Pretty good" is not good enough. I need my team to have a starting QB who they believe can help them win at the absolute highest level. If they don't have that guy, then I need my team to be actively looking for the next guy.
I just don't believe they have that guy.