Baker Mayfield Says 'I'll Take All the Blame' for Browns' Struggles This Season

Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield said Friday during an appearance on ESPN's Get Up! he's willing to shoulder full responsibility for the team's disappointing 2019 season.  

Mayfield, who threw 21 interceptions and lost two fumbles, explained he turned the ball over far too much and that it played a key role in the Browns' lackluster 6-10 record.

"Well none of the stuff that happens the year prior carries over. We all at this table know that. It comes down to me doing my job. I've never turned the ball over so many times. That might have been the most combined over my whole career, and you can't win like that, and so that falls back on me. I'll take all the blame for that, and so it comes back on communication. Just being on the same page. Doing my job the best I can and not worrying about the outside stuff."

The Browns own the longest playoff drought in the NFL at 17 seasons. The next closest is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at 12.

This past season was met with renewed optimism both nationally and within the fanbase, though. The team went from 0-16 in 2017 to 7-8-1 in 2018 and made several major additions last offseason, led by wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. to bolster the Mayfield-led offense.

Instead of taking another step forward, however, Cleveland remained stagnant. Mayfield admitted on Get Up! they simply could never find the root of their on-field problems:

"We, in our own building, set our own expectations extremely high, much like everybody else thought and so it was disappointing for us. I wouldn't say that the outside noise affected us really. We might have paid a little bit of attention to it, but the talks that we had inside that locker room, inside our building were all about winning, they were all about heading in the right direction. So as soon as it went wrong, that was the frustrating part. It was like: 'What is going on here? We all want this thing to work, but it's not.' So trying to find the problem and figure it out, it just kind of slipped past us."

Mayfield also took ownership of the frequent verbal warfare with his detractors, including former NFL head coach Rex Ryan, who was on the ESPN set Friday: "Let's just be honest: I put my foot in my mouth a lot this past year."

The 2017 Heisman Trophy winner showed a refreshing amount of self-awareness in the interview. He appeared to understand his performance in 2019, both on the field and as a leader off it, didn't come anywhere close to the standard necessary to get the Browns back into the playoffs.

Now the question is whether he can overcome the down season to elevate his play back toward the form he showed during the second half of his rookie campaign. He threw 19 touchdowns with a 106.2 passer rating in the team's final eight games of 2018.

Mayfield completed 59.4 percent of his throws for 3,827 yards with 22 TDs and 21 interceptions across 16 games for the Browns in 2019. He ranked 31st among qualified QBs in passer rating.

He'll need a bounce-back campaign in 2020 to re-establish himself as Cleveland's franchise signal-caller.