Include Baker Mayfield as another surprised by the New York Giants drafting quarterback Daniel Jones earlier this year.
“Blows my mind,” the Cleveland Browns quarterback told GQ in a wide-ranging interview released Tuesday. Jones finished with a 17-19 record at Duke, before the Giants made him the No. 6 overall pick. “Some people overthink it,” Mayfield told the magazine. “That’s where people go wrong. They forget you’ve gotta win.”
Mayfield wasn’t the consensus No. 1 overall quarterback prospect before the 2018 draft despite going 39-9 at Oklahoma. But he was top on the Browns’ draft chart as they selected him No. 1 overall and watched him transform a franchise that had gone 0-16 the season before he arrived.
“Either you have a history of winning and being that guy for your team or you don’t,” he told GQ.
Mayfield covered several other topics in the interview, including his flag planting in Ohio Stadium after Oklahoma defeated Ohio State in 2017. Mayfield said the “higher-ups” at OU asking him to apologize was “just jaw-dropping” to him.
“Actually we won. That’s what we’re about. I had done so much and worked so hard to play for that school, I was just kinda. … almost embarrassed for them to tell me to apologize,” said Mayfield, who, when asked how heartfelt that apology actually was on a scale of 1 to 10, replied, “zero.”
“Which might hurt some Ohio fans’ feelings,” he added. “But I think we’re all good now.”