BEREA, Ohio (92.3 The Fan) – The Browns began their preparations to face Baker Mayfield and the Carolina Panthers in earnest Monday morning.
The question going into Sunday’s season opener is, who has the advantage – Mayfield or the Browns?
“Baker obviously is a player that we know well. He knows us really well, too, in terms of scheme and those type of things,” head coach Kevin Stefanski said. “I think our players and our coaches have a real good understanding of his strengths.”
Stefanski coached Mayfield for two seasons with mixed results – an 11-5 playoff season that saw them a play or two away from the conference title game and then an injury plagued, team fell apart, disappointing 8-9 finish last season that prompted the organization to move on.
Mayfield knows the Browns as much as they know him.
Strengths, weaknesses, tendencies.
They have the book on each other.
“A lot of times, I think it is overrated in terms of they know that we know that they know and those type of things,” Stefanski said. “He is a really good football player, and we have to get to work and preparing to play him.”
Safety John Johnson III doesn’t share his head coach’s view and feels they have the upper hand.
“It's one of him and 11 of us,” Johnson said. “So we can move all around and disguise things and different guys play different spots, so I think we've got that.”
Last week a comment about Sunday’s game that was attributed to Mayfield made headlines everywhere, including Cleveland, forcing him to deny it to reporters in Carolina.
Mayfield will most certainly be talking on the field Sunday.
Cornerback Greg Newsome II, who admitted regardless if Mayfield said what he was accused of, is still motivated by it. Johnson not so much.
“I just want to win,” Johnson said. “That's the most important thing on my mind and whoever's out there, we gotta dominate.”
Stefanski and the Browns have insisted there are no hard feelings with Mayfield, even if the 2018 No. 1 pick may not feel the same way.
Starting with the Odell Beckham Jr. fiasco and exacerbated by Mayfield’s inability to perform at a high level due to his left shoulder injury, there were some hard feelings last season within the locker room, but according to Johnson, they’ve faded.
“We had a couple months to kind of get rid of those feelings,” Johnson said. “We've been out here, we had OTAs without him and stuff like that. So I think now, we're at a point where we're locked in, we're laser focused on beating Carolina.”
Johnson did not elaborate much on the tension behind the scenes during Beckham’s orchestrated exit from Cleveland, but he did admit it was there.
“Maybe for like a split second,” Johnson said. “But like I said, we get back to our roots, understand it's a business. You always want to see the guys that you grind it out with go and shine and be happy. I think that was the biggest thing for me personally. Maybe for a split second you had those feelings, but you gotta understand that that's just the law of the game we play.”
Players did not hold back their love for Beckham on social media during the Rams Super Bowl run wishing him well and congratulating him. As for Mayfield, not a tweet wishing him well before or after surgery. It was hard not to notice the silence, which spoke volumes.
The frosting on the cake – or likely the last straw – last season probably was Mayfield sitting out the season finale.
“I know I had, like, a little injury. I missed the previous two games,” Johnson said. “But I wanted to make sure that I came back just to play with my guys and stuff like that. It goes both ways. Maybe he was hurt? We don't know. Maybe he couldn't play. It's something we just don't know.”
Mayfield’s surgically repaired shoulder has him able to play this week to kick off his fifth season.
“I think he's confident,” Johnson said. “That was probably a big thing that happened last year, maybe the confidence wavered a little bit.
But looks confident, looks healthy, looks like he's whipping the ball, so it's going to be a challenge.”
Mayfield aims to continue Cleveland’s Week 1 misery.
The Browns haven’t won an opener since George W. Bush was president in 2004. That’s a 17-year Week 1 winless streak, but the Browns will always have that tie against the Steelers in 2018.
“I really don’t worry about that. I don’t,” Stefanski said. “I worry about trying to go 1-0 versus a good football team on the road. I can promise you there are a lot of guys in here who are brand new to this organization and new players. They do not really concern themselves about the past.”