Baker Mayfield Says He, Odell Beckham Jr. Are ‘Good Now’ After Browns Drama
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Baker Mayfield is “good now” with former Cleveland Browns teammate Odell Beckham Jr., the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback said on The Pat McAfee Show Friday.
“We’re good now, and that’s part of being grown as a person,” Mayfield told McAfee. “I think normally I would hold a lot of grudges, but no, we’re good. We’ve squashed that.”
When McAfee said he was glad to hear Mayfield and Beckham’s relationship had improved, Mayfield answered, “Me too.”
Mayfield spent two full seasons throwing to Beckham in Cleveland.
Their fraught on-field relationship hurt both players’ production to the point that Mayfield and Beckham “might have cost each other millions of dollars,” according to ESPN’s Jake Trotter.
According to ESPN Stats & Information, Mayfield either under- or overthrew on 27 percent of his pass attempts to Beckham between 2019 and 2021. That ranked third among all NFL quarterback-receiver duos.
Mayfield was much more accurate when throwing to other Browns catchers, Trotter noted. His Total Quarterback Rating when throwing to Beckham between was 58.0, compared to 85.2 combined when throwing to all other targets over that span.
That mismatch on the field led to Odell Beckham Sr. posting a video on the day of the 2021 trade deadline highlighting a series of Mayfield’s missed throws to Beckham. The Browns ended up restructuring Beckham’s deal and releasing him in November 2021 to sign with the Los Angeles Rams.
Beckham told reporters the following February that he had not spoken with Mayfield since his departure from the Browns.
“Like I said earlier about closing doors and being able to have closure, that conversation I’m sure it will be at some point in life,” Beckham said.
That August, however, Beckham left a supportive comment regarding Mayfield’s debut with the Carolina Panthers.
The Buccaneers and Baltimore Ravens are not set to face each other this season, so Mayfield and Beckham will not be reuniting on the field. The good news is, their relationship seems to be improving off of it.