CLEVELAND (92.3 The Fan) – As tight end David Njoku made his way all the way down to the 3, Baker Mayfield jumped up and down as he started to move down the field while keeping his eyes fixated on the Cincinnati Bengals sideline where former head coach Hue Jackson stood.
Mayfield made his point, and left his mark, in the Cleveland Browns’ 26-18 win over the Bengals to complete a season sweep of Cincinnati for the first time since 2002.
“No, no idea what you are talking about. Yeah,” Mayfield said when asked about it after the game.
The video went viral on social media.
“That is alright. We won,” Mayfield said. “David did not score on that play.”
The throw over the middle to Njoku on a second-and-4 from their own 31 sealed the victory after the Bengals mounted a late rally with a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns to make the final score much closer than the 20-point spread most of the afternoon.
The No. 1 overall pick won his sixth game as a starter – seventh overall on the season – while throwing for another three touchdowns to climb within two TD tosses of tying the rookie record held by Peyton Manning and Russell Wilson. He has 24 touchdowns in 12 starts. Manning and Wilson had 26 in 16 starts as rookies.
“Winning next week is the goal,” Mayfield said.
“Winning is hard, so you need to be able to enjoy it. That is what you see touchdowns like that – the Chief Slam, Hollywood doing his walk on the red carpet and just different stuff like that. It makes it fun and enjoyable to be able to celebrate with your teammates. You go through so much, you better enjoy it.”
Mayfield has thrown a touchdown in each of his 12 starts – the third-longest streak to start a career in NFL history behind Brad Johnson (15 from 1996-97) and Kurt Warner (23 from 1999-2000).
Meanwhile, the Browns, who have won five of their last six games, have been resurrected from the dead and will not finish in last place in their division for just the fifth time since 1999. The victory bumped them back to .500 for the first time since 2014, when they were 7-7.
The seven-win turnaround is a franchise record, and Mayfield, whose 64.6 percent competition percentage trails only Otto Graham by a tenth of a percentage point for the franchise record, has quickly become a fan favorite.
“It is definitely a lot of fun,” Mayfield said. “It is not always pretty, but you go through the good times and the bad times together. There has been a lot more good than bad as of recent. It is fun. I expect that relationship to continue to grow. I relate to Cleveland. The work ethic, the stuff that you have to earn it around here, that is what the Browns are all about. It is going to be a good relationship for a long time.”
By sweeping Cincinnati, Mayfield and the Browns secured an above-.500 record within the division this year and remain in position to finish with a winning record if they can beat Baltimore next week.
“I think we talk about culture change -- it is a mentality,” Mayfield said. “When we play division opponents, they need to know exactly what they are going to get out of us, and it needs to be a game they need to prepare for every year twice a year.”
By Daryl Ruiter