I went to my local newsstand on Tuesday morning to pick up some lottery tickets and the latest edition of the USA TODAY Sports Weekly. Imagine my surprise when I saw two magazines perched next to each other on the main counter, each featuring a Cleveland Browns player on the cover.
Baker Mayfield on GQ. Odell Beckham Jr. on Sports Illustrated. Cover boys.
With the rise in prominence comes the trappings of fame. Teammates being cover boys on major magazines is not something Cleveland is used to seeing. What the Browns said inside those glossy covers isn’t going to win neither Mayfield nor Beckham fans in New York, either.
Not that they should care. They are Cleveland now. They’ve embraced Cleveland, and the Northeast Ohio region has embraced them right back. If they rankle some feathers in places which traditionally mock Cleveland as some backwater banana republic where sports careers go to die, that only further endears them to the ravenous Browns fans tired of being the butt of jokes.
Tired of losing. Tired of not having any real hope. Tired of not having any players worthy of national attention, or magazine covers. Tired of obsessive national talk radio hosts with thin skin and no ability to hide their negative agendas.
It’s a new phenomenon, both for Cleveland and the media centers on the coasts, for the Browns to have anyone worthy of such attention. Neither side appears all that savvy in navigating the unchartered waters.
Would it be nice if Mayfield and Beckham stuck to football? Sure. But part of what makes them so successful is that neither is afraid to be himself or say what he thinks. That’s who they are as men, not just football players.
If the New York Post or Colin Cowherd get offended or misconstrue what the new Browns sensations say and do, that’s their problem. Not Cleveland’s.
They’re scared, which is precisely the theme of the GQ piece with Mayfield. They’re bitter, which is painfully obvious in the Big Apple reaction to Beckham biting on their incessant probing and provocation (none of which comes from the Cleveland media by the way). But the biggest issue is that Cleveland matters more than New York in the NFL right now, and that is not something they understand.
If Mayfield and Beckham come even close to their potential in Cleveland, New York will need to get used to that.
