Report: Lions don’t have ‘much interest’ in Baker Mayfield

It was attempted to match the Detroit Lions with Baker Mayfield, but a new report confirms they don’t have ‘much interest’ in the former No. 1 overall pick.

From the time it was inevitable he was available, attempts were made to tie the Detroit Lions to Baker Mayfeld. But the potential landing spots for the Cleveland Browns quarterback have dwindled with each move made by a team to acquire a quarterback, and Albert Breer of SI.com and MMQB has new nuggets to outline the Browns’ predicament.

"More and more, it looks like the Browns are going to have to pay a very significant percentage of Baker Mayfield’s $18.858 million option for this year to get anything back for him. You can call it buying a draft pick if you want. I think it’s more of a tax for what they did to get Deshaun Watson.If Cleveland’s willing to do that, I still think Seattle makes the most sense. I’ve been told neither Carolina nor Detroit has much interest in Mayfield, so the potential landing spots are dwindling."

Lions probably never had much interest in Baker Mayfield

The Lions have a notable tie to Mayfield in their organization, with former Browns general manager John Dorsey working for them. Dorsey was Cleveland’s general manager when the decision was made to take Mayfield No. 1 overall in 2018. So the perception has been that he still believes in Mayfield, and the idea he’d aggressively stump for the Lions to make a deal was out there.

Dorsey may have indeed vouched for Mayfield, and it’s safe to assume his input was valued if so. But there’s a lot more in the Mayfield picture than any belief in his talent, and the notion his personality would appeal to head coach Dan Campbell. He would not sink quietly into a backup role behind Jared Goff, or similarly sink quietly into that backup role if he lost a competition for the starting job. And he’s not a better player than Goff.

It’s been said with other players, and it applies to Mayfield as I paraphrase–the level of tolerance for your…let’s call it trouble…is directly proportionate to your talent. Mayfield’s skill level as a quarterback does not match the stuff he comes with, even if some of the latter could be brushed off as unfair perception.

It would be nice if the Lions had better than Tim Boyle and David Blough behind Goff. But Mayfield isn’t it in a broad sense, and the Lions indeed won’t be the team to bail the Browns out of a situation they’ve made.