CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Carolina Panthers quarterback Baker Mayfield said Wednesday that he very much wants to beat his former team, the Cleveland Browns, when the teams meet on opening day, but says a conversation with an NFL Network reporter has been blown out of proportion.
“Everybody’s going to write whatever story they want, there’s history that I played there the last four years,” Mayfield said Wednesday. “I’m an extremely competitive person, everybody knows that. If I wasn’t wanting to win, that’d be a really big issue, me being the quarterback here. I want to win at everything I do. That’ll never change.”
But did the quarterback, whom the Panthers acquired via trade from the Brown this summer, tell Buffalo Bills sideline reporter Cynthia Frelund that “I’m gonna [expletive] them up”?
“That is not how I phrased it, that is not even what I said,” Mayfield said Wednesday. “I’ll just leave it at that.”
Pressed further on what he did say, Mayfield continued:
“I talked to her,” he said said. “She addressed it, she said it, obviously you guys can go back and see what she said. All I did was agree, I hope we win. Pretty plain and simple. I’m competitive, I want to win, and I don’t think that should be harped on.”
Wednesday afternoon’s post-practice session was the first chance Mayfield has had to address the report, which caused a social media stir Tuesday. Mayfield said he was surprised when his alleged comments surfaced early Tuesday morning.
“I’m off social media right now. So when it was brought to my attention, it was kind of shocking to me.’’
Panthers coach Matt Rhule said he hasn’t paid any attention to what Frelund said.
“The reporter who talked about it, I think addressed the situation. I’m not really paying any attention to it,” Rhule said. I not was distracted by it. I’m not really on the internet or social media very much. So I didn’t know about it until someone told me about it late yesterday.”
Browns players heard what their former quarterback allegedly said. On Tuesday All-Pro defensive end Myles Garrett told cleveland.com that the team will use it as motivation.
“Talking like that and moving the way he does, it’s worked for him. He uses that for fire, for motivation and I think speaking like that helps amp him up,” Garrett said. “It does the same for us as well. We’ll take it and we’ll use it, and I’m hoping for a great matchup.”
Garrett added that he is not mad at Mayfield. Instead, he acknowledged that Mayfield carried himself similarly while in Cleveland.
Mayfield said he expects the Garrett and the Browns to be motivated to play him and the Panthers as well.
“That’s a person that I’ve played with for years,” Mayfield said. “So he knows how I’m wired, how I compete every single day and everything I do, so that’s to be expected.”
With over a week left until the Panthers season opener, Mayfield said he understands why taking on his former team is a storyline because he was not expected to be traded when the 2021 season ended.
“It’s obviously a bigger story because I haven’t given the media what they’ve wanted me to give them this year and this offseason,’’ he said. “So this is what they think that I said and it’s not, so take and run with it, but I know what I did. And our team knows what I said. So it’s alright.”
Reached for comment Tuesday afternoon by The Charlotte Observer, Frelund said her intentions were positive.
“I was like, ‘Go be the Comeback Player of the Year.’ I was encouraging someone who I believe has had a hard offseason. I was happy for him,” Frelund told The Observer. “It wasn’t like he came up to me in any sort of angry tone. Nothing was like that. It was all rooted in positivity, moving forward, and being in a good spot.”
Frelund then said she should not have shared their private conversation without permission from the Panthers or Mayfield.
“I shouldn’t have spoken about our private conversation. I used bad judgment in that I should have asked him first, and/or cleared it with him before I said it,” Frelund said. “But I was truly just defending a person who I believe in and want to see good things for.”
Mayfield was recently named the Panthers starting quarterback after the team acquired him from the Browns in early July for a conditional fifth-round pick. Mayfield agreed to trim $3.5 million off his $18.9 million base salary to join Carolina. The Browns are paying $10.5 million of his contract while the Panthers took on about $5 million.
Since arriving in Charlotte, Mayfield quickly established himself as QB1. Panthers coach Matt Rhule said he’s been impressed with how fast Mayfield picked up Ben McAdoo’s offense.
The team is embracing his leadership. On Monday, center Bradley Bozeman said Mayfield is “a guy you want to play for.”
In his most recent public comments, on Aug. 22, Mayfield acknowledged the game against the Browns on Sept. 11 will be more than “just a game.”
“Not going to sit here and be a robot and say it doesn’t mean anything,” Mayfield said at the time. “It will.”
