Baker Mayfield thought the NFL would simply be about figuring out how to win football games on the field. But his experience with the Cleveland Browns taught him that winning could depend just as much on whether everyone inside the building was pulling in the same direction. 

“It was eye-opening to see that it wasn’t just football for me going from college to the NFL,” Mayfield confessed on the 4th And South podcast. “It wasn’t just about how do we win. There was a lot of people that are involved in it and not everybody was trying to help us win. Not everybody was trying to do their part and do their role to do that. So, I think that was the most eye-opening part.”

The Browns drafted Mayfield with the No. 1 pick in the 2018 draft. However, the stability he offered at quarterback was affected by a relentless cycle of frequent coaching changes and poor offensive help. Mayfield saw the Browns hire three head coaches during his stint with the Browns, and they also made some draft mistakes in wide receiver Anthony Schwartz, offensive lineman Jedric Wills Jr., and others.

Despite acquiring high draft picks, the Browns failed to find sustained success. 

“There were ups and downs, for sure,” Mayfield went on. “The amount of high draft picks they had in the past couple of years, the free agent signings that we had before I got drafted, the culture was really starting to change. And that’s a credit to John Dorsey, Eliot Wolf, Alonzo Highsmith, for bringing in football guys to truly try and change it. Some things you can’t change in the building. But you can change the locker room and the makeup of that. And they did a good job of building that.” 

Through the efforts of the front office and the changing makeup of the locker room, the Browns built a stronger culture. That cultural shift brought in a breakthrough during the 2020 campaign. 

Under Kevin Stefanski as their new coach (in 2020), Cleveland finished the regular season with an 11-5 record. It was their first playoff entry since 2002. They even defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers in the wild card round and secured the franchise’s first playoff win since 1994.

But that success didn’t last long for Mayfield. He suffered a lingering shoulder injury in 2021, and that impacted his play. As he and the team struggled, his relationship with the organization began to deteriorate. By the 2022 offseason, Cleveland made the controversial decision to sign Deshaun Watson. Ultimately, Mayfield was traded to the Carolina Panthers. 

According to ESPN’s Jake Trotter, Mayfield was informed that the Browns would be looking at quarterbacks like Russell Wilson or Aaron Rodgers. However, Mayfield was not informed of the push for Deshaun Watson, who found out through social media.

Nevertheless, Mayfield’s time in Cleveland serves as a stark reminder of the NFL’s harsh reality. Even with elite draft capital and top-tier talent, sustained success remains impossible unless an entire organization commits to a unified, supportive, and functional culture.