The Baker Mayfield Era Is (Almost) Officially Upon Us

After leading the Browns to an incredible second-half comeback on Thursday, and unleashing Bud Light onto the hoards of Cleveland fans who have been desperately waiting almost two years for a win, Baker Mayfield will be the new starting quarterback in Cleveland. Hue Jackson is expected to make the decision official on Monday after giving the team the weekend off, according to a report from cleveland.com.

The first-overall pick came into the game against the Jets late in the second quarter after Tyrod Taylor was taken out of the game with a concussion—his third in thirteen months. Mayfield threw for 201 yards on 17/23 attempts and even caught a pass for a two-point conversion. While the rookie’s performance was impressive on its own merit, Jackson mentioned that he did that well without any first-team reps.

Per the report:

Jackson acknowledged that Mayfield pulled off the outing — including completing 74 percent of his passes — despite having virtually no reps with the starters during practice. He does get extra time after practice to run his own team’s offense instead of the scout team, but not with the starters.

“That even makes it more impressive what he did last night,’’ said Jackson. “It means that he’s doing the extra studying. It means that he is really engaged offensively with what we are trying to do and how we are trying to do it.’’

Mayfield received a lot of criticism coming out of college for being arrogant and short. While there’s not a lot he can do about the latter, he’s certainly doing enough behind the scenes to prove that the former won’t get in the way of a starting job in the NFL.