Everyone's Saying the Same Thing About Baker Mayfield & Deshaun Watson After Week 4

Through four games, Baker Mayfield's Tampa Bay Buccaneers are 3-1, and Mayfield, with 984 yards, is ranked fourth in the NFL. He has completed 91 of his 129 passes, with eight touchdowns and just two interceptions. At 106.9, Mayfield ranks fourth in quarterback rating. The Browns sure could use a quarterback like him.

That's because, after four games, Cleveland's starter--Deshaun Watson--is 1-3, with just 727 yards, four touchdowns and three interceptions. His rating is 74.4, and he leads the league in taking 19 sacks on the year.

Mayfield, of course, was shuffled out of Cleveland after having been the No. 1 overall pick in 2018, traded first to Carolina in the summer of 2022, where the Panthers released him midway through the following season. (Carolina also had Sam Darnold and let him walk, too, but that's another story.)

The Browns traded away three first-round picks, a third-round pick and two fourth-round picks after letting go of Mayfield to acquire Watson from the Houston Texans, then awarded Watson a record-breaking five-year, $230 million contract that stunned observers because it was fully guarnateed.

The fortunes of both Mayfield and the Buccaneers, and Watson and the Browns have taken very different paths since. And just about everyone observing the NFL these days is still surprised it all happened.

That includes Dan Orlovsky, the former NFL quarterback and current ESPN analyst, who wrote on Twitter/X, "If the Browns kept Baker they'd be the Vikings."

But it does not stop there, of course.

There is still a long way to go, of course, in the 2024 season. But there has been so little hope emanating from Cleveland, and the Watson contract figures to be an albatross around the organization's neck not only this year, but for the the two coming seasons, too.

Mayfield, meanwhile, led the Bucs to the conference semifinals last year and figures to have Tampa Bay among the NFC's best teams again this year.