Baker Mayfield fires back at Colin Cowherd's continuous criticism
Thinking that Colin Cowherd is talking out of his rear end when he has a sports opinion and then tweeting about it is not unusual among sports fans.
So when Baker Mayfield, the Cleveland Browns’ top draft pick and potential future face of the franchise, got sharply criticized without relent by Cowherd leading up to and after the NFL draft, Mayfield took to Twitter to clap back at Cowherd to his face.
Well it happened bud. Have a nice day!
— Baker Mayfield (@bakermayfield) June 19, 2018
Cowherd has been continually on the attack, calling Mayfield undersized, “undraftable,” criticizing his athleticism, and just generally offering the scorching hot take that Mayfield isn’t even as good as what the Browns already have at quarterback, namely Tyrod Taylor and Deshone Kizer.
Cowherd described Mayfield’s ceiling as Case Keenum, the Vikings quarterback who tends to get tarred with the “game manager” brush, a polite way of saying a quarterback is piggybacking off a strong defense the way Tim Tebow did in Denver and Russell Wilson did in Seattle.
Mayfield’s floor, according to Fox Sports 1’s dispenser of uninformed opinions? Johnny Manziel.
Cowherd believes Mayfield’s collegiate shenanigans, which did not in any way get in the way of his performance on the field at Oklahoma, are of the same sort as a guy whose substance abuse and party boy problems flushed him clean out of the NFL.
The Browns are hoping Mayfield is more like Wilson, another “undersized” and “not athletic enough” quarterback who took the Seahawks to two Super Bowls and brought the city of Seattle only its second championship in its sporting history and the only one by a team that’s still in the city (the SuperSonics won the 1979 NBA Finals).
Cowherd’s not the only one who’s been drinking the Mayfield Haterade, however.
Dan Labbe of Cleveland.com reported Tuesday that Mayfield may not win the starting job over Taylor, which set Cowherd off on his latest rant in the first place.
Cowherd is a notorious West Coast homer, and he acted like it was a personal slight when the Browns passed on his boy Sam Darnold rather than sending the USC signal caller to Cleveland. Darnold fell to third after the Giants took running back Saquon Barkley and ended up being drafted by the New York Jets, whose last attempt to make an NFL player out of a USC quarterback, Mark Sanchez, gave the world the Butt Fumble.
If one felt charitable, you could give Cowherd the benefit of the doubt and say he’s staked his reputation on Darnold and is standing up for his choice, saying the Jets “won” the draft as they got the guy he called “the best” quarterback in the draft.
But there are two things wrong with that assessment.
One, Cowherd doesn’t have a reputation to stake. He’s widely regarded as a clown who spews hot takes rather than a legitimate expert offering opinions.
And two, Darnold’s draft stock suffered as he had a disappointing final season at USC and played poorly in the Cotton Bowl, and college quarterbacks who have lousy seasons against college defenses have a bad habit of crashing out of the NFL.
Plus, USC doesn’t exactly have the world’s greatest track record of producing quality NFL players. Wen the guys you’re following are Captain Butt Fumble and Matt Leinart, you might as well be starting every drive on third-and-10.
But then again, there’s only one way for Mayfield to truly prove Cowherd wrong, and that’s to make Cleveland relevant again after an 0-16 season.
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