CLEVELAND, Ohio – He stumbled, so he looked right.
“I let this team down,” Baker Mayfield said Sunday. “Simply and simply, I have to hold the damn ball.”
Maybe Tim Tebow would not have said damn well.
Mayfield’s fourth downward sneak in the last 90 seconds, when a conversion would take the next step towards a match goal, ends with a lost ball, a lost cause, a lost game and a lost chance, the Cleveland Browns now who probably had to beat the Pittsburgh Steelers to make it to the playoffs, a win over the New York Jets would have beaten a ticket to the season.
“I’m aware of what could have happened if we had won today,” Mayfield continued.
Both Mayfield and coach Kevin Stefanski reiterated the absence of their five best receivers (let’s not forget Odell Beckham’s injury, in addition to the COVID-19 contract tracking that knocked out four others) and three of the top six attacking lineouts (late we do not forget the top) Chris Hubbard, in addition to the beginners, Jedrick Wills and Wyatt Teller, was no excuse for the 23-16 defeat on Sunday.
“We had all the guys we needed, and we did not,” Stefanski said.
“There is no excuse,” Mayfield said.
They are obviously wrong. This is undoubtedly a reasonable excuse, a clear and obvious reason to lose. Late Saturday it was revealed that Jarvis Landry, Rashard Higgins, Donovan Peoples-Jones and KhaDarel Hodge would not be, and to stack it on top of the need to score their seventh and eighth best offensive lineouts in Kendall Lamm and Nick Harris started, blew a hole in the attack and the game plan.
“It was a little late in the week to change something, and we did not have to,” Stefanski said. “We made some changes, like anyone in the situation would do, but the guys understood what we were doing.”
They just could not do it. Where Mayfield looked, insisted no one blamed the backup, who combined a combined six catches on 13 targets for 72 yards and whose names lost history.
“These guys didn’t even think they were going to play,” Mayfield said. ‘For all who criticize them, shame on you. Put me down that I did not do my job, that I did not play at a high level as I should have, and that I did not get these guys going and complete this game. ‘
It’s not about them. It’s about the quarter, just like everything is. After Mayfield once snuck in, after stumbling when he was hit from behind on two previous pockets, it was not his 28 for 53 that was 285 yards past. It was about what comes next. It was about responsibility and frustration, about opportunity and anger.
So to take Mayfield a single question at his news conference after the game, announces that he is going to answer all the questions at once, says three times that there is no excuse, twice says he failed and one minute and 52 seconds later tap, stand and leave on the table …
It felt right.
It felt like the browns were moving on to what was next.
It may feel like the first step towards a victory.
In 2008, while attending the University of Florida for the quarterfinals, Tebow entered the interview room after the game after a 31-30 loss to the unclassified Ole Miss. Tebow, the reigning Heisman trophy winner, led a team that was expected to follow the 2006 year. national title with an unbeaten season two years later. Instead, they lost to a 2-2 team. Like Mayfield on Sunday, Tebow was stopped at the last moments on a fourth-and-1 full-back who claimed a loss.
Tebow was even more on point than Mayfield. He spoke for 39 seconds in 98 words and first apologized to Florida fans and then promised that he and the team would work harder than anyone in the country. Florida did not lose again, winning the national title and Urban Meyer, then the coach of Florida, engraved his speech on a memorial plaque and hung it outside the stadium. With the ten-year anniversary in 2018, ESPN and everyone else did a story, not only about the championship, but also the speech, which is now remembered as ‘The Promise’.
Mayfield has spoken about three times longer than Tebow, so it will not all fit on a memorial plaque. Depending on how you use contractions when transcribing the quote, Mayfield was about 380 words. The type will have to be too small to handle it all. And while Tebow promised what would happen next, Mayfield was more focused on recording what was happening at the time.
But absorbing it was the first step in promising what would happen next. Florida tried to add a title when only two years old. The Browns are trying to win the playoffs for the first time in 18 years. Here’s a little more built up. Before the Browns could move forward, they had to pass the battle.
Mayfield took it, some deserve it, others not. It does not make him a hero. It just makes him a quarterback. Sunday, that’s what the browns needed. There was a lot of anger looking for a home, over testing protocols, rules for postponing the NFL, an unfinished Jets that might have been a ploy repaired by the Browns, hitting the cover and a bad luck for a team that played so well.
Maybe ESPN is back for a story in ten years. Maybe the Browns beat the Steelers next week, won the playoffs, ran an after-season and then at some point, one year or another, won everything. Maybe the words in it all will not matter. But sometimes words do matter. Because maybe the words are the basis for action.
Still … probably no memorial plaque. ‘I Failed’ is not much for a record label. But it worked for a disappointed team and a frustrated fullback. The end of Mayfield’s speech sums it up pretty well. The last 95 words, then to the Steelers.
‘This is on me. That’s the thing, this one is going to sting for a day or two, but we have the Steelers to win and get in. Yes, I’m aware of what could have happened if we had won today. I’m well aware of that, but that’s what it’s. So I will have to roll with these beats. Back against the wall, and we have to win to get in. You know what, this group fought today, but I did not do enough and played well enough to win, and that’s it. ”
New Browns face masks for sale: Here’s where you can buy Cleveland Browns-themed face masks for coronavirus protection for adults and teens, including a single mask ($ 14.99) and a 3-pack ($ 24.99). All NFL proceeds were donated to CDC Foundation.
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