Browns: Colin Cowherd continues his bias takes on Baker Mayfield

Colin Cowherd has such a need to be right that he can’t even admit when Baker Mayfield does something truly fantastic for the Browns.

Colin Cowherd should not be taken seriously by any real sports fan. His hot-takes are designed to be click-bait, and his insight for sports is garbage. Baker Mayfield had a career day on Sunday, completing 22 passes without missing a target at all and throwing for five touchdowns. Only one Browns quarterback, Otto Graham ever threw more in a game (6). This wasn’t even a game where you could argue “oh, the Bengals defense was just bad” because Mayfield was making pinpoint passes through defenders, who had great coverage on Browns’ receivers.

He could not miss.

How did Cowherd react to the bane of his existence showing him up on Sunday? He doubled down on a bad take.

"Stop trying to convince me of something that isn’t true. We know what Baker Mayfield is in the NFL. He’s below average. He’s one of the least talented quarterbacks in the league, except when he plays Cincinnati. When Baker plays the Bengals he’s amazing — 5-1, with a 111.4 passer rating, and we’re like ‘OH, BAKER!’ Did you watch last week against Pittsburgh and Week 1 against Baltimore?? He was overwhelmed. Stop trying to convince me what Baker is. He’s not a bust, but he’s darn close. He’s NOT good, EXCEPT against the Bengals. You gotta stop trying to convince me that Baker Mayfield is anything more than ‘below average.’ That’s what he is, except against Cincinnati, whose defense has been historically atrocious since he’s gotten into the league… You are defined in this league not by wins, but WHO you beat."

To be clear, Mayfield is 5-2 this year. In those two losses, he’s been bad. Yet, the whole team has been bad. Only Mayfield has to carry that shame for some reason though. So if he’s the only one blamed in blowouts, let’s show how good he’s been in wins. In the five wins so far, Mayfield has completed 66% of his passes, has 14 touchdowns, and only four interceptions.

Winning in spite of Mayfield? Get over yourself. The hot takes on Mayfield are overplayed at this point. To say that a quarterback with a TD-INT ratio of 3.5-1 is bad and “almost a bust” is pathetically naive.

Yet, Cowherd wants to move the proverbial goalposts. Despite this being a league of parody where anyone can win on any day, Cowherd is now acting like this is the NCAA and that not every NFL team gets to call itself an NFL team. So it no longer matters if you win, but how you win against X-team. To be clear, the only thing that defines you is wins. If you go 15-1 and win the SuperBowl, no one cares who that one loss was to.

The Browns are 5-2, again, and are fifth in the league in total points scored.

Cowherd has made it his job to denigrate Mayfield at every turn. He’s so zealous in his hatred of Mayfield that it’s turning him into a clown. Mayfield has played great this season. It’s people like Cowherd, however, that control the narrative, and if you only look at his games in Baltimore and Pittsburgh this season (54%, two touchdowns, three interceptions), then yeah, he’s played bad.

Last year, however, with a bad coach, he went 2-2 against the Steelers and Ravens. He went 1-1 in 2018 against the Ravens and frankly should’ve been 2-0. This notion that Mayfield can’t beat Pittsburgh and Baltimore is recency bias by a man who’s too immature and too egocentric to admit he was wrong. He’s going to extremes to cover his butt.

This is after all the man who said Mayfield was “undraftable” but then, to Mayfield’s face, lied and said he never said it. This is also the man that said Sam Darnold and the Jets would host the 2020 AFC Championship game.

Cowherd is to journalism what a deep-fried cheeseburger is to healthy living. He’s a fraud. His bias against Mayfield proves this.