Berea, OH (92.3 The Fan) – Baker Mayfield has been called a lot of things leading up to the NFL Draft, fair or not.
But there is one comparison that bothers him, and frankly he can blame his arrest in February of 2017 that landed him on every tabloid site in the country for the comparison.
He’s Johnny Manziel 2.0.
“Johnny and I are two completely different people,” Mayfield said Thursday night.
“I am not going to go out and try to prove that I am not Johnny. I am going to be myself. To me, that is going to take care of the rest.”
The team responsible for drafting and then dumping Manziel has now selected him first overall.
It’s an opportunity, that unlike Manziel, he pledges to take advantage of.
“It is a fresh start for me,” Mayfield said. “It is kind of the same thing, I have not done anything yet. It is a blank slate. Right now, I am not going to get complacent. I am getting a fresh start in Cleveland, and I couldn’t be more excited about it.”
Mayfield held back tears when he answered his phone while sitting with family and friends in Texas and Browns general manager John Dorsey was on the other line with 1 question for him – “How would you like to be the first pick in the draft?”
“An unbelievable feeling, a surreal feeling; something that I only could have dreamed of and actually becoming a reality is amazing,” Mayfield said. “I am so thankful that I am here.”
Truth be told, when it comes to football, Mayfield is the antithesis of Johnny Football.
It was a point that Browns general manager John Dorsey drove home Thursday night.
“He is an individual who as earned it all the way through his life,” Dorsey said. “As I look at this thing, whatever he has done from high school to college and now here, he is earning. He has really worked his way up here.
“He loves the game of football. He loves to study the game of football. I have no qualms about this man whatsoever, as a man or as a football player. I think he is a really good person.”
Manziel, selected 22nd overall after Cleveland traded up with Dallas in 2014, did not invest in football with the Browns. He was not a student of the game. He didn’t do his homework and he rarely showed up prepared and it showed on the field. The Browns willingly turned a blind eye to his demons and past problems at Texas A&M that ultimately were rooted in high school.
Mayfield is described as a leader, mentally tough and a student of the game whose work ethic earned him a starting job as a walk-on at 2 major universities, won him the Heisman trophy and now the honor of being the first pick in the 2018 NFL Draft.
“This guy has a chip on his shoulder,” head coach Hue Jackson said. “I think we all know that because I think that he has a burning desire to be the best.
“You have got to be able to understand the game and be able to process the game and play under duress because that is what pro football is. I think this guy can do that at a high level.”
There’s a tremendous weight that comes with being a quarterback take first overall. Compound that with being picked by a franchise that chews up and spits out quarterbacks like gum and doesn't win, that is quite the heavy burden to carry.
But Cleveland’s inglorious history with quarterbacks does not shake the Sooner. It emboldens him.
“It is a mentality. You come in and think about the past so that you can focus on the present and work for the future,” Mayfield said. “For Cleveland right now, we are making the right moves. Tyrod and I, we are going to put an end to that list of the QB names on the back of the jersey.”
The one thing Mayfield has going for him is that the Browns aren't going to throw him to the wolves as a rookie. He'll sit behind Tyrod Taylor and Drew Stanton.
"He wants to compete. We would never stop a guy from competing," Jackson said. "Let’s be honest in this room, we have been through playing young quarterbacks here in Cleveland for the past two years and putting them in some tough situations. I think it is really important that he understands. When he is ready to play, he will be ready to play, but that is tough for a young guy playing in this division and in the National Football League in our system. I think it is the right thing to do.
"Kudos to John for setting this up the right way. We have a veteran player in Tyrod Taylor. We have another veteran in Drew Stanton that this young man can come in and learn the game and not feel like he has to walk out there and be everything right away and learn how to play in the National Football League before he plays."
The numbers he put up at Oklahoma, where he went 34-6 as a starter, are staggaring – 12,292 yards passing, a 69.8 completion percentage with a 119-21 touchdown–to–interception ratio.
The Browns are hoping, check that, they are counting on him to replicate that success in Cleveland.
"I am hoping that I can help be the start of something new for Cleveland, we can turn it around," Mayfield said. "For me, that means taking the right steps in whatever it is – being the best backup, being the best starter – whatever comes my way and being the leader that I always have been. It just means a lot because I know that the Cleveland fan base is hungry and deserves a successful team.”
