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Quarterback Baker Mayfield said a lot during his lengthy appearance on the YNK Podcast, including that he felt disrespected by the Browns.
But Mayfield also acknowledged that he plans to do some things differently when it comes to leadership at his next stop — wherever that might be.
Towards the end of the 90-minute interview, Mayfield was asked if he was excited about getting guys to gather around him in a new locker room. The quarterback made it clear that his trial will not be about getting people to like him.
“I won’t force it. I’ll be myself,” Mayfield said. “Because I feel like I tried to force it when things weren’t going well on the field, like the last couple of years. I feel like I’m going to go in there and be myself because that’s what has worked for me in the past. I will go in with the same work ethic and mentality. And if they don’t like me, that’s okay. But if I step onto the field and play with confidence for who I am and what I think I’m going to do on the field next time I get the chance, I’ll earn the respect of the guys who did it I don’t appreciate it to begin with.
“And if I’m worried that they like me, then what do I do? They don’t even care if I like them. They want their quarterback to win. They’re trying to get a paycheck. If their team wins, they get paid. So the guys who don’t really like me personally, that’s fine. But I have to have their respect. And the way I do that is work my ass off being myself. Because you can be sniffed out in a af—ing heartbeat if you’re a fake. They will sniff it out quickly.”
Mayfield was not asked about ESPN’s Chris Mortensen’s report that the Browns wanted “a grown-up” quarterback — a comment Browns owner Jimmy Haslam disputed. But the quarterback acknowledged he’s working to improve on leading professional teammates in the locker room.
As Mayfield put it, one of a quarterback’s most important jobs is getting everyone to fend off complacency.
“It’s like, how do I get the best out of people who are making this much money?” Mayfield said. “Because I could always motivate people when we weren’t making any money. That was easy. I could look them in the face, I could do all of that because, you know what, we were on the same pitch.
“After four years you get a pension, you get benefits and so on. So how do you motivate people who are at this point, who have already reached it? This is the biggest fight for me right now. I can motivate myself. I know how to do this. I haven’t always done it right. But I know how to do it. How can I get it out of everyone else? Because that’s a quarterback leadership perspective. I have to make everyone around me better than they really think.”
Mayfield added that “a bunch” of his energy goes into his leadership, in part because he knows how he’s perceived and portrayed by his teammates and their families in the media.
“When they go home at night, they’re going to talk about how my quarterback is acting,” Mayfield said. “And he better be a responsible guy who really cares about them as people – not just to win. And how do you galvanize it? And that is a big problem.”
At this point, nobody really knows where Mayfield’s next destination will be or when he’ll get there. But whoever he’s playing could get a quarterback with a newfound appreciation for leadership and how important it is as a team’s QB1.