Berea, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Odell Beckham Jr. played defense Thursday.
A day after Baker Mayfield blew up at a reporter over a line of questioning, the Browns star receiver took up for his quarterback.
“Some of the criticism that's been on [Baker], you can't sit here and say it's all on him,” Beckham said. “You have to take a look at everything that’s going on around him. And obviously he has to play better, I have to play better, Jarvis, Chubbs, we all have to do better. We all need to do better.”
Beckham has been advising Mayfield to tune out the critics since he arrived in the spring.
“Drake said it best. He said, ‘In this game you only lose when you fight back,’” Beckham said. “There’s no winning in this world. This is a world filled of negativity.
“We know negativity sells.”
On Wednesday Mayfield fought back after he was pressed about the sequence at the end of the first half that followed Denzel Ward’s blocked field goal. With the Browns receiving the opening kickoff of the second half, a golden opportunity to turn the tide against the Patriots.
But prior history between Mayfield and the reporter boiled over, leading to a moment that went viral making both Mayfield and the reporter the story of the day.
Mayfield’s walk off line followed a contentious back-and-forth when he was asked if he was happy with the drive.
“Was I happy with the drive? No, we did not score points. That is the dumbest question you could ask. What? Jesus….,” Mayfield said.
Beckham understood why Mayfield got angry.
“I get it,” Beckham said. “It’s like I sit up here and I’ve often times answered questions with too much authenticity and it gets taken and used against me and it’s like I come up here and I respect you, not to say you don’t respect me, but don’t like, I’m a human, don’t like play with me. I don’t like being played with. It’s a mutual respect thing and at times that feels like it’s lost. We’re only human. I don’t have time to deal with that.”
Beckham is frustrated too.
Acquired in March from the Giants and expected to be an electrifying offensive presence, Beckham has been held to just one touchdown this season. The big splash highlight reel plays he’d become so accustomed to producing in New York have been few and far between so far with Cleveland.
Beckham is more than willing to shoulder his share of the blame for the Browns’ offensive woes.
“[You] Can’t sit there and be like it’s Baker’s fault,” Beckham said. “I feel like that’s the easiest thing for us to do and I’ve been in situations where one person’s getting the blame and the rest of the people are quiet just to kind of stay out of the fire, like I’m going to jump in the fire with him. I’ll be the first one. Some of these losses are on me. I need to be in the right place at the right time. I need to be better. And that’s what I plan to do for the rest of the season.”
It was widely assumed Beckham would be a play-and-play option for Mayfield and first-year head coach Freddie Kitchens, but it hasn’t worked out that way.
It takes time.
Beckham believes that time will come sooner rather than later.
“I have no doubt in my mind that at some point in time it’s going to be everything that we all talked about,” Beckham said, “and that’s why you have those conversations, those talks and you want to know what can I do better. I’m going to be the first one to look at myself and be like, what can I do better? What are my weaknesses on the field, off the field, whether it’s communication, whatever it is, you just find that weakness.”
Whatever perceptions of Mayfield that exist, Beckham knows where Mayfield’s focus is – winning.
“This is a kid who cares about football, he cares about winning,” Beckham said. “Whatever people make him out to be, just because of his personality, you know, it’s like can’t really say anything. If he was winning and he was still doing it, we would all be here laughing and loving him. But because we’re losing, we want to kinda poke at him a little bit. And I’m going to be the first one here to defend him every single time.
“I always got his back. I know what it’s like, I’ve been there.”
