The Cleveland Browns selected Baker Mayfield with the first pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. In his rookie year, Mayfield had a fantastic season and helped turn the team around from an 0-16 campaign the year prior, to a 7-8-1 campaign.
However, 2019 saw Mayfield and the Browns take a big step backwards. They acquired quite a few big names and suddenly they were set to be a major contender.
That did not happen. Mayfield completed just 59.4% of his passes in 2019. He did so to the tune of 3,827 yards and 22 touchdown passes. Those numbers aren't bad, but his 21 interceptions were. Especially when you include the six fumbles.
Mayfield has a lot of work to do before next year, and it starts with figuring some things out. Here are three questions he needs to answer in the offseason.
Can He Mature?
Mayfield has been know as an extremely cocky and playful quarterback. He dances, he talked trash and all that fun stuff.
When he was playing good and it looked like he would turn the Browns into winners, that was all fine and dandy. People loved it. He wasn't cocky, he was confident. That trash talk and dancing was fine because he could back it up.
2019 was a different story, though. Mayfield looked bad and the Browns were a very disappointing 6-10. Suddenly he was cocky and immature. He wasn't seen as a leader and he couldn't back up the trash talk.
So now the question has to be, can he mature? Not just on the field, but off it as well. It would be great for the Browns if he turned into the best QB in football and they didn't have to even worry about the rest. But the truth of the matter is, there will be growing pains.
Can Mayfield mature and making those growing pains easier to deal with?
Limit The Turnovers
This one is really simple. Mayfield had 27 turnovers in 2019; that's not winning football.
Let's be honest though, he wasn't great in this category in 2018 either. In his rookie year, Mayfield had 14 interceptions and seven fumbles in 14 games (13 starts).
So sure, it was a step backwards in 2019, but it can't be looked at as an anomaly. It's not like 2019 was some random bad turnover season that won't be replicated. He's had serious issues with turnovers in both NFL seasons so far.
If Mayfield wants to take the next step as a quarterback in the league, this is it. He needs to stop turning the ball over so much. If he can't do that, it's hard to see him ever actually leading Cleveland to the playoffs.
Can He Lead?
There was really no excuse for the Browns to go 6-10 in 2019. They added quite a few big pieces, including Odell Beckham Jr. and Kareem Hunt.
Even with Mayfield's struggles, you'd like to think the team that they had could have at least improved upon the 7-8-1 record of the year prior and hit .500 or even 9-7.
Instead, things crumbled quickly. And when they crumbled, Mayfield was not always giving these fantastic answers to the press and there were quite a few questions about his leadership.
Now to be fair to Mayfield, a lot of people aren't superstars at speaking to the media or saying the right thing. However, you hope your franchise QB can improve on those things. You hope he can start saying the right thing to the media. Hopefully he can not have issues with players on the team (or at least not publicly like he did with Duke Johnson). And you hope he can rally them to victories.
Those are all improvements Mayfield can make this offseason when it comes to his leadership.
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