Baker Mayfield's NFL career has been a roller coaster — an unoriginal cliché, yes, but a truly accurate one.
His rookie season in 2018 after being selected first overall in the NFL Draft was largely positive, as he helped transform a winless 2017 Browns team into a competitive opponent after taking over as quarterback in Week 3. He finished with a 6-7 record as the Browns starting quarterback — though it could have been seen as 7-7 based on that Week 3 victory — and a solid stat line of 3,725 yards, 27 TD, 14 INT and a 93.7 passer rating in 14 games.
2019 saw progress in the opposite direction, with the Browns going 6-10 and Mayfield under scrutiny by the rest of the NFL community more than perhaps any other quarterback. His interception total was up. His passer rating was down. And the Browns had regressed to a 6-10 team, second-worst in the division thanks to the lowly Cincinnati Bengals (who were about to get Joe Burrow, likely changing their fortunes).
And the first half of the 2020 campaign, though accompanied by a good Browns record, was no different for Mayfield. There were criticisms of Baker's play from prominent voices coming each and every week, reaching high points after bad losses.
But now, he's won four in a row, including in Week 13 against the Tennessee Titans with a pristine, four-touchdown performance. So where does that leave him in the eyes of former wide receiver Brandon Marshall?
"I don't know Baker. I never met Baker. I don't like his game, I wouldn't want to play with him," Marshall said on the "I Am Athlete" podcast, and it didn't take long for his co-hosts to ask him why. "Until you prove it to me, don't be doing the talk... these players now, they make with the fame before the game.
"You [are] the quarterback, you [are] the man, like I give that to you. Cool. But right now, until you prove to me that you're a Pro Bowler, a real Pro Bowler, a real All-Pro player, win a Super bowl or something like that... then I'm [going to] follow you."
In addition, Mayfield's antics, including the ones that special guest Hue Jackson discussed on "I Am Athlete," are too much for Marshall.
"At the end of the day, I really believe that you're talking about a Heisman Trophy winner that walked into a building of a 1-31 team and he was used to winning, and so he's looking at the coach and going 'wait a minute, what is he bringing to the table?' " Jackson said. "He didn't understand the dynamics of what had happened the two years prior. That's what I really believe happened.
"Now once all the antics started to happen, I believe that came from a different place. I really do... the gestures toward me. The things that were said. If I remember, he said that I was a phony, and... [I'm] damn sure I'm not a phony."
After a rookie Mayfield called Hue Jackson — then his former coach — "fake," the quarterback didn't back down.
"People get maturity confused with me being 100 percent comfortable in my own skin," Mayfield said in 2018 (via Pat McManamon of ESPN). "So that's absolutely how I am. I've always been that way. It's not immature. It's me being exactly who I am every day, being that same guy for our team, and I think that's very important right now.
"People took it as me personally attacking Hue. That's not it. It's the fact that I get to have my own opinion on how [the move to Cincinnati] transpired, and he gets to do what he wants. That's how it is."
Marshall and co-host Fred Taylor see Mayfield's antics as what some would call arrogant, and a behavior that they haven't seen displayed by quarterbacks like Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Deshaun Watson and others. And while they acknowledge that the Mayfield-led Browns are now a 9-3 football team, they're not ready to concede he's playing the biggest role in that success.
"Baker's having his best season from a touchdown to interception ratio... he doesn't have to throw the ball as much as he had to run the ball," Taylor said, which is what Marshall called "coaching around" Mayfield. "You have to [coach around him]."
Watch the full discussion regarding Mayfield here, starting at the 18:02 mark.
LISTEN NOW on the RADIO.COM App
Follow RADIO.COM Sports
Twitter | Facebook I Instagram