Baker Mayfield is a talented, if erratic quarterback. He's also highly outspoken.
Perhaps he's getting to the point where his talent level isn't enough to offset the waves he can create off the field.
Watson is an obvious upgrade from a talent standpoint. But he comes with a hefty salary and will require a huge haul going to Houston in order to get a trade done. So by taking a meeting with Watson – which required the approval of a trade package by the Texans – the Browns are implicitly expressing trepidation about Mayfield, which he clearly is aware of given his response to the news.
During the "Rich Eisen Show" on Wednesday afternoon, ProFootballTalk's Mike Florio presented the possibility that Mayfield's on-field abilities simply might not outweigh the headaches he can bring.
"The one thing that I think is easy to lose sight of because we're not privy to everything that goes on behind the curtain, but we've seen enough from in front of the curtain from Baker Mayfield to come to the reasonable conclusion that he may be a little bit of a pain in the a-- for the Browns, right?" Florio said. "And they may have gotten to the point where they've had enough, and there's been enough flashes of it that we've seen over the past couple of the years, and the Browns try to be professional about it and keep it out of sight.
"I like that aspect of (Mayfield's) personality, but there's a point where you've got to turn it off or you've got to be so good that you overcome that element of your overall makeup. Like, Aaron Rodgers is a pain in the butt but he's good enough that the Packers are going to tolerate it. Mayfield's not so good that the Browns are going to tolerate it."
Of course, the flipside of that is Mayfield – as much of a pill as he might be – isn't mired in legal issues like Watson presently is.
Regardless, quarterbacks are getting paid more than they ever have been, including mid-tier signal-callers like Kirk Cousins and Carson Wentz. If the Browns are going to tie up a substantial chunk of their cap space into a quarterback, clearly they'd prefer to have that be with Watson and not Mayfield.
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