Berea, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Baker Mayfield spent Wednesday’s practice as a spectator, but he expects that to change Thursday.
Mayfield hasn’t thrown a football since Sunday’s 20-13 loss to the Steelers in Pittsburgh that saw him suffer a bruised right hand in the closing seconds of the first half.
Despite the injury, he plans to play against the Bengals.
“[Because] mama didn’t raise a wuss,” Mayfield said.
Aside from handing off one time, Mayfield didn’t touch a football as he wore a wrap on his right hand with his fingers exposed. While reporters looked on, he watched from the side as backup quarterback Garrett Gilbert and Eric Dungey, who is on the practice squad, handled the reps.
“I'll try and go [Thursday] for sure,” Mayfield said.
Head coach Freddie Kitchens said Wednesday morning that Mayfield would not be limited during practice.
“He should not be,” Kitchens said.
Then came practice, and he was.
“We were walkthrough tempo today besides the individual routes that you guys saw so no need to try and do it today,” Mayfield said.
Mayfield injured his right hand with 16 seconds remaining in the first half when he hit it on the helmet and face mask of Steelers linebacker Bud Dupree while following through on a deep ball for Odell Beckham Jr. that fell incomplete.
“I’d say if Bud Dupree was there a millisecond earlier it could’ve been pretty bad,” Mayfield said. “[I’m] pretty fortunate.”
Mayfield returned to the game for the second half after x-rays were negative.
“From everything that they evaluated, just a nice contusion, bruise, whatever you want to call it,” Mayfield said.
Mayfield’s hand wasn’t the only thing hurting as the Browns left Pittsburgh Sunday.
The loss to the Steelers was devastating.
“I think it felt better today than it did the past couple of days just because that one hurts,” Mayfield said. “That is a huge blow to our chances and just we can’t have any slip ups the rest of the way out, but we realize that if we win out, we have to have some things happen, but we can’t focus on that. We have to win out and do our job.”
Coupled with Baltimore’s win over the 49ers, the Browns were eliminated from the divisional race, meaning that drought stretches into a 31st year. Their playoff hopes are essentially on life support and they’ll need quite a bit of help if they’re to end the longest playoff drought in the league this year.
Mayfield has struggled in late game situations converting just one of five late-game opportunities in the closing minutes this season.
“Obviously, we have had a few of those drives this year that we have not capitalized and a lot of that is on my part, but you have to take pride in that,” Mayfield said. “You have to want to have the ball last and take advantage of your opportunity. It hurts not winning that one, especially that we had the ball with about 1:50 left. Have to be better next time.”
According to Pro Football Reference, Mayfield has completed 49 of 91 passes or 53.85% with three touchdowns and seven interceptions in the fourth quarter and over the final four minutes of games when tied or trailing Mayfield has completed 11 of 27 passes or 40.74% with a touchdown and four interceptions.
“It just comes down to everyone doing their job in critical moments,” Mayfield said. “Not worrying about the score, just doing your job each and every play. It does not have to come down to critical moments. These games do not have to be close for us. If we just block everything out and do our job, we can be a great team so we are going to have to focus on that for the rest of the games.”
