CANTON, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – Joel Bitonio has seen plenty of quarterbacks come and go.
This offseason wasn’t much of a shock for Bitonio, who has grown accustomed to offseason quarterback changes in Cleveland, but it did hit him a bit differently.
Baker Mayfield has been exiled – or as the Browns would say, excused – until he can be traded and Deshaun Watson, who carries with him a mountain of baggage and lawsuits, has been brought in to take over.
“Yeah, Baker was my guy,” Bitonio said Wednesday. “I still remember the Thursday night Jets game when he came into the game and helped lead us to victory and that was honestly one of the more special moments in my career just because it had been so long since we won games. And he’s a tough guy and he played his heart out for us and I’ll always respect that.”
As the Browns turn the page to Watson, Bitonio will always feel a connection to Mayfield.
“He’s still a friend of mine,” Bitonio said. “We text occasionally, and I think like everybody else, he’s kind of waiting it out to see where he’s going but Baker did a lot of for this franchise. He won a lot of games, he was a great player for us and I’ll always be a friend.”
Bitonio’s feelings for Mayfield are understandable considering it was Mayfield who brought the first hint of success and stability to the Browns, who had been floundering in failure for years.
“He’s always had that chip on his shoulder and I’m sure it’s continued to get bigger and bigger,” Bitonio said. “A team’s going to give him a chance. I know the contract situation is working itself out but he’ll get a chance to play. Quarterback’s such a scarcity in the league that he’ll get a chance to play and perform again.”
Mayfield’s play and production suffered, and with it the team, as he played through a torn left labrum last year. It’s hard for Bitonio not to wonder what might have happened had Mayfield elected to have surgery and come back healthy this year.
“Yeah, it’s tough. It’s the NFL and sometimes you have bad injury luck and for him, he obviously had a hurt shoulder, hurt enough to get surgery, and I’m sure it affected him,” Bitonio said.
Watson will be the 12th different starter for Bitonio to block for since being selected in the second round of the 2014 NFL Draft. That is assuming the NFL even lets Watson play Week 1 at Carolina.
Whoever starts September 11 against the Panthers will be the seventh different Week 1 starter for Bitonio.
Whenever Watson is allowed to play, Bitonio recognizes the football player the Browns got form the Texans.
“He's a heck of a football player,” Bitonio said. “He does some things on the field that are really special, really unique. I crossed over with him at the Pro Bowl a couple times and had the trip to the Bahamas where I got to know him. All that stuff is in court and they have legal battles to go through, but in this NFL, you're trying to get better. You're trying to find ways to win, and Deshaun Watson is a special football player.”
The Browns made the calculated decision that the juice was worth the squeeze.
Whatever punishment Watson gets from the NFL in the wake of what is soon to be 26 lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct during therapeutic massage therapy sessions, the Browns feel the PR nightmare that comes with Watson is more than worth it in the end.
Bitonio can’t bring himself to worry about Watson’s legal woes or potential problems with the league office.
“It’s one of those things though for me personally, I can’t really control much with it, so I try not to worry about those things,” Bitonio said. “And we’ll go into the season, I think we have really good quality backup quarterbacks that have played a lot of football in Jacoby and Josh. It’s one of those things that it might happen, it might not, we don’t know. And we can’t truly worry about it, but if it does, I think we have the right character in the room to handle that adversity.”