Baker Mayfield understands the way the Cleveland Browns opened the 2020 season wasn’t what fans expected. Speaking to local media Sunday, he said he thought there was at least one positive he could take away from the 38-6 defeat at the hands of the Baltimore Ravens. According to Scott Patsko of Cleveland.com , Mayfield said it was a “nice punch in the mouth” and “a wakeup call.”
“Sometimes a wakeup call is pretty good for everybody – a nice punch in the mouth, and that is how we should take it. We should not dwell on it, realize that we just got beat today, they played better than us, look at it, get better, move on and go play the Bengals. That is all we can do.”
Mayfield said it felt to him as though the Browns were going to start the season out quite a bit better than they did. He said he felt as though they had a bit of momentum going after the first drive. Then defensive end Calais Campbell got through the offensive line and batted a few balls down. He also forced Mayfield’s first interception of the year early on.
The quarterback added it is important to take care of the ball and they shot themselves in the foot. He also understands there had been a big focus in avoiding turnovers, but the Ravens are a very good team and mistakes were going to happen against an opponent of that caliber.
When going back to talking about the “punch in the mouth” his team took, he thinks it can be something that spurs them to play better because the Browns are in a better place than they were a year ago.
Mayfield said there is a different makeup and attitude in 2020. He said the team is going to watch film and then get the loss out of their systems.
He added having a short week — they play the Bengals Thursday night — is a positive. He said they aren’t able to dwell on the previous week’s game.
He said they’ll study what went wrong and try to correct those issues for their next matchup against a division rival.
Mayfield didn’t expand on why he believes the attitude is different under new head coach Kevin Stefanski. The franchise entered the 2019 campaign with similar good feelings under first-year head coach Freddie Kitchens.
They suffered a similarly one-sided defeat last year as well, getting blown out 43-13 to the Tennessee Titans. Mayfield’s squad did bounce back from that loss, winning their Week 2 contest 23-3 against the New York Jets.