Every once in a while, listening to sports talk radio is worth it.
When you get a truly deranged sports talk radio moment, you know it immediately; there's a certain unmistakeable energy in the air when it's happening. It's like magic, almost. And when your favorite team is involved, that's the good stuff.
Enter Baker Mayfield.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback looked incredible against the Commanders in Week 1, and it got the people talking. Specifically, it got extremely tired and despondent Cleveland Browns fans talking about what could have been.
It's safe to say things aren't going well in Cleveland right now, and we've basically arrived at the point where it's acceptable to say, out loud, that Mayfield is a better quarterback than Deshaun Watson.
One Browns fan called a local station in Cleveland to say exactly that, and very much out loud. It didn't go over well with the host, who handled it with all the grace and expertise that we've come to expect from sports radio.
Baker Mayfield is making Cleveland lose their minds and it's only Week 1
The first call on Cleveland sports talk radio this morning pic.twitter.com/Ef9dln5MjX
— Ben Axelrod (@BenAxelrod) September 9, 2024
Tremendous!
On one hand, this is the type of response that feels very stuck in 1995, and I'm not sure how many people actually enjoy tuning into hear temper tantrums and the sound of a radio host hitting a mic. Like, my dude, it's Week 1. That's enough? You have 16 weeks of this to go, and that's just this year. You're going to be taking calls about which quarterbacks are better than Deshaun Watson for the next half-decade.
Maybe there's some backstory or context to why listing one single stat sent this guy off the rails, but again – this is sports radio, so probably not.
It does make for terrific Bucs content, though. Mayfield finally found a city and team where he could thrive, and the Browns are stuck paying one of the NFL's worst starting quarterbacks over $70 million per season for the next two years. Imagine how bad the calls will get when the Browns are paying him that much to not even be on the team anymore.
I don't know who'd win, but the luckiest thing to happen to the Browns this year was not having to play the Bucs.