The Baker Mayfield-Colin Cowherd wars are continuing. Last June, Mayfield went on FS1’s The Herd to promote a new documentary on him, and he shot back at Cowherd’s criticisms of him for celebrating with the Oklahoma band and running from police after others were involved in a fight. That became a bit of a meme, and even led to Joel Klatt trolling Cowherd months later by wearing a Mayfield jersey to The Herd. Well, Cowherd went on another anti-Browns rant Friday, citing anonymous NFL executives, and Mayfield shot back on Twitter:
That’s quite the response from Mayfield, but he’s proven quite willing to shoot back at media both in person (as in his previous appearance on Cowherd’s show) and on Twitter. And Mayfield said before the draft last year he was “keeping a list” of media members who crossed a line; it looks like Cowherd’s still on that list.Honestly, this feels like a pretty smart move for Mayfield to say what he thinks here. Sometimes it’s not worth it for athletes to fight back against media criticisms, but Cowherd’s comments here went beyond on-field criticisms to specific insults to a number of key members of the Browns (and interestingly enough, not as much to Mayfield as to others). By shooting back, Mayfield is standing up for his teammates and organization. And he’s doing so against someone who already isn’t popular in Cleveland; Cowherd famously unloaded on the city and the state back in 2011, not only defending LeBron James’ departure for Miami but saying that everyone else should leave town too.
“I could argue that if you still live in Cleveland at this point, you’re bringing unemployment on, couldn’t I?”“If you live in Youngstown, Ohio should I have no sympathy that you’re unemployed? You’re kinda bringing it on yourself.”“If you live in Ohio or Indiana rurally, you’re kinda bringing unemployment on yourself.”
So, yeah, Mayfield is a lot more popular in Cleveland than Cowherd. And that seems likely to continue. But hey, former Cleveland Gladiator Brian Brikowski had a pretty good idea here:
https://twitter.com/BrikHouseSki/status/1114294496404148231
Now that would be a worthwhile pay-per-view.
[Baker Mayfield on Twitter]
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.