Baker traded to the panthers

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

3 hours ago, DawgX said:

Unfortunately, we just had no leverage. Every team either has their QB or wants to tank for one. I still think had the Watson trade happened sooner, a team like Washington would have given us at least a third for Baker while also taking on his entire salary.

Yep.  And it’s not like this is a “bad” deal, it’s the only deal it would seem.

Like, this situation was effed as soon as they traded for Watson, no other way around it.

If Watson plays well here for the next decade and we win a SB or whatever, no one will care about the poor return we got on Baker.  
 

Baker is somewhat irrelevant in the whole discussion unless he absolutely blows up elsewhere.   Watson’s success or lack thereof is the only thing this FO is gonna be evaluated on for a while.

[ditchdigger]

Reminds me of a favorite joke of mine...

"Why is divorce so expensive?"

"Because it's worth it."

Any return is a good return, at least we got something. Denzel would approve. 

 

[DaWg_LB.]

3 hours ago, DawgX said:

Unfortunately, we just had no leverage. Every team either has their QB or wants to tank for one. I still think had the Watson trade happened sooner, a team like Washington would have given us at least a third for Baker while also taking on his entire salary.

I respect that 100%.......We had to pay a Premium at the worst possible time to give our team some Clarity.....

AND we did Baker a Solid also...trading him to the best possible spot....we could have been butt holes and held on to him, like the Texans did last year and wait for a starter to go down....would have gotten us a 3rd for sure.....now IF, TWO starters went down AND 2 teams who rolled the dice with starters (Seattle and NO) had decent records but the QB's were playing like shyte......NOW were talking Conditional 3rd moving to a 1rst if the team made the playoffs....but one can dream...

[Thomas5737]

3 hours ago, DaWg_LB. said:

I respect that 100%.......We had to pay a Premium at the worst possible time to give our team some Clarity.....

AND we did Baker a Solid also...trading him to the best possible spot....we could have been butt holes and held on to him, like the Texans did last year and wait for a starter to go down....would have gotten us a 3rd for sure.....now IF, TWO starters went down AND 2 teams who rolled the dice with starters (Seattle and NO) had decent records but the QB's were playing like shyte......NOW were talking Conditional 3rd moving to a 1rst if the team made the playoffs....but one can dream...

The Houston organization has been hot garbage but their QB said he would hold out if he wasn't traded and was facing a bunch of criminal charges so no team was going to touch him at that time so they had 2 choices. Let him sit out and not get paid or let him collect a paycheck. They absolutely did Watson a solid.

The Browns took the best deal they could get (that would help themselves) they didn't give 2 cents about how it affected Baker. They don't have to, it's not how the game is played but they didn't do him any favors. 

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

12 minutes ago, Thomas5737 said:

The Browns took the best deal they could get (that would help themselves) they didn't give 2 cents about how it affected Baker. They don't have to, it's not how the game is played but they didn't do him any favors. 

Well we don’t know if that’s entirely true.

The timing is kind to Baker.  They likely could have waited and got more of someone got hurt. They traded him now and have given him a chance to win the starting gig, which I expect him to.

Baker also was willing to give up 3 million bucks to make this trade happen, so he’s clearly happy to be out and was on board with the move.

[Thomas5737]

1 hour ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

Well we don’t know if that’s entirely true.

The timing is kind to Baker.  They likely could have waited and got more of someone got hurt. They traded him now and have given him a chance to win the starting gig, which I expect him to.

Baker also was willing to give up 3 million bucks to make this trade happen, so he’s clearly happy to be out and was on board with the move.

Oh I'm sure Baker is happy to move on but we didn't move him to do him a favor we wanted that chapter gone too because it's a bunch of unwanted media drama that the team doesn't want to deal with. Sure, they could have waited but maybe he gets injured working out and we have to eat his whole salary (still get compensated about the same with the comp pick). We'll see if he even passes his physical for the trade to be completed. 

[candyman93]

Quote

Jason Lloyd of The Athletic (subscriber, $) described some of the problems behind the scenes between the two. All of them led to “a quarterback who didn’t trust his coach and a coach who didn’t trust his quarterback.”

Lloyd’s piece described an instance when Stefanski missed a meeting so he could meet with Myles Garrett privately. Mayfield had a problem with that which led to “a glaring spotlight” to be shown on the QB during film sessions from that day forward.

Lloyd may have made the strongest statement yet about Mayfield’s presence in the locker room:

Mayfield was widely viewed as childish and immature. His behavior annoyed teammates and divided the locker room. He was often difficult to coach.

https://brownswire.usatoday.com/2022/07/07/report-lack-of-trust-a-missed-meeting-and-immaturity-soured-mayfield-stefanski-relationship/
 

Wow

 

I can 100% believe him and Stef didn’t get along. The other stuff though…?

Edited July 8, 2022 by candyman93

[Thomas5737]

1 hour ago, candyman93 said:

https://brownswire.usatoday.com/2022/07/07/report-lack-of-trust-a-missed-meeting-and-immaturity-soured-mayfield-stefanski-relationship/
 

Wow

 

I can 100% believe him and Stef didn’t get along. The other stuff though…?

There didn't really seem to be anything of note. Even Stefanski missing a meeting or Mayfield getting special treatment because of it seems like it's too unimportant to have warranted a "glaring spotlight". There may be truths in there but it seems extremely over exaggerated to get clicks.

There may be real stories eventually but this doesn't seem like one of them.

Edited July 8, 2022 by Thomas5737

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

Thank god we got rid of this immature clown and brought in a guy who knows how to conduct himself like a mature adult.

[JDD]

13 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

Thank god we got rid of this immature clown and brought in a guy who knows how to conduct himself like a mature adult.

[dawgdish]

3 hours ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

Thank god we got rid of this immature clown and brought in a guy who knows how to conduct himself like a mature adult.

Adult as in adult cinema. Wait, that's unfair to those actors: at least they signed a consent from.

[AkronsWitness]

So if Im understanding this correctly, because Baker got pissed at his HC for missing a meeting, Stefanski's retaliation was to spotlight his mistakes in front of the team during film sessions?

lol I mean....thats funny. So at least we have some actual news about the rumored 'things happening internally' comments for the last 10 months.

I wish it worked out with Baker, but constantly butting heads with every HC you have because you carry yourself with the privilege of a 10x Pro Bowler is.....a major reason why they called him immature.

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by AkronsWitness

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

6 minutes ago, AkronsWitness said:

So if Im understanding this correctly, because Baker got pissed at his HC for missing a meeting, Stefanski's retaliation was to spotlight his mistakes in front of the team during film sessions?

lol I mean....thats funny. So at least we have some actual news about the rumored 'things happening internally' comments for the last 10 months.

I wish it worked out with Baker, but constantly butting heads with every HC you have because you think you carry yourself like a 10x Pro Bowler is.....a major reason why they called him immature.

I feel like it was kind of obvious they didn’t see eye to eye last season, and I think many of us mentioned it then.

Baker made mention of the play calling and was visibly frustrated at times.  Stefanski looked somewhat incredulous at times and towards the end of the season didn’t seem particularly concerned with masking Baker’s deficiencies.

As a fan of the TEAM, I didn’t love any of it.

Baker has a history of being difficult to coach at this point.  Or at least having issues with coaches and carrying a grudge.  He’s come off as a bit of a bro at times and maybe he’s immature day to day, I’m not gonna pretend I know. 
 

That said, I felt pretty strongly last season that we weren’t scheming things as well as we could have to set the offense and team up for success.  We passed too much and out of formations Baker struggled with. Maybe Stefanski just got too cute with the play calling, but late in the season it seemed like he was almost making a point of proving Baker couldn’t succeed.  

 

[AkronsWitness]

4 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

I feel like it was kind of obvious they didn’t see eye to eye last season, and I think many of us mentioned it then.

Baker made mention of the play calling and was visibly frustrated at times.  Stefanski looked somewhat incredulous at times and towards the end of the season didn’t seem particularly concerned with masking Baker’s deficiencies.

As a fan of the TEAM, I didn’t love any of it.

Baker has a history of being difficult to coach at this point.  Or at least having issues with coaches and carrying a grudge.  He’s come off as a bit of a bro at times and maybe he’s immature day to day, I’m not gonna pretend I know. 
 

That said, I felt pretty strongly last season that we weren’t scheming things as well as we could have to set the offense and team up for success.  We passed too much and out of formations Baker struggled with. Maybe Stefanski just got too cute with the play calling, but late in the season it seemed like he was almost making a point of proving Baker couldn’t succeed.  

 

Sure, it definitely seemed like KS went a bit sideways towards the end of the year. Maybe it was a test to take the training wheels off to help see if he can be great without all of the schemed up basic hot route reads he received in 2020 before they decided to pay him or not. Perhaps it was a in-season test for him to see how much he has really grown and what he can really do in a live setting without being spoonfed 1 read plays. I dont know, its all speculation, but it was ugly all around for everyone

However, eventually the blame has to be on the player here. They changed coaches/coordinators every year because of him, because he didnt like them or the offensive style didnt fit him. They drafted/signed tons of  OL protection to make it easier on him. They doubled down on elite RBs to lean on so that the offense was more successful for him. They brought in 2 pro bowl level WRs to throw to for him.

Eventually it falls on HIM for it not working out. The Browns did more than enough to turn the right knobs to get this to work, but it didnt. 

[JDD]

7 minutes ago, AkronsWitness said:

Sure, it definitely seemed like KS went a bit sideways towards the end of the year. Maybe it was a test to take the training wheels off to help see if he can be great without all of the schemed up basic hot route reads he received in 2020 before they decided to pay him or not. Perhaps it was a in-season test for him to see how much he has really grown and what he can really do in a live setting without being spoonfed 1 read plays. I dont know, its all speculation, but it was ugly all around for everyone

However, eventually the blame has to be on the player here. They changed coaches/coordinators every year because of him, because he didnt like them or the offensive style didnt fit him. They drafted/signed tons of  OL protection to make it easier on him. They doubled down on elite RBs to lean on so that the offense was more successful for him. They brought in 2 pro bowl level WRs to throw to for him.

Eventually it falls on HIM for it not working out. The Browns did more than enough to turn the right knobs to get this to work, but it didnt. 

Is it really fair to say they fired Hue or Freddy because of Baker? I mean you can say Baker was the reason Freddy got hired, you can't really say Hue even deserved to be his coach after winning 1 game in 2 seasons.