Baker Mayfield is here to win ball games and that’s it.

He’s not here to make friends with opponents.

He’s not going to be the friendly make-you-comfortable quarterback brand ambassador and that’s why the critics can’t stop talking about him. The other reason people love talking about Mayfield is that he is the unapologetic leader of the Cleveland Browns’ culture change.

Today, Mayfield can lead the Browns to something they’ve only done twice since they restarted the franchise in 1999. A win at Baltimore would give the Browns an 8-7-1 record. A winning record. In doing so, Mayfield and Co. could also put a dagger in the Ravens’ playoff plans.

If the Browns win today, they will double the franchise’s total wins for the past three seasons. Since firing head coach Hue Jackson after the eighth game this season, Cleveland has posted a 5-2 mark. The last time Cleveland went 5-2 in a seven-game stretch Mayfield was a walk-on transfer sitting out a year at Oklahoma. The Browns posted these five wins in the last 49 days. The team’s previous five wins took 1,096 days. Things are different in Cleveland this year and it has a lot to do with Mayfield. He’s the change agent. He’s a disruptor.

Last week, he made himself an easy target for critics with a stare down of his former coach. It came late in the fourth quarter after a long pass to David Njoku. Mayfield locked in on the Cincinnati Bengals sidelines where Jackson, his former coach, found work as an assistant coach after being fired in Cleveland. Mayfield turned, backpedaled and continued the stare as he strolled upfield. It was quite the performance piece. It left no questions about what exactly the quarterback was doing.

Baker Mayfield stared down Hue for 30 mins lmao pic.twitter.com/I8EKQss5Oj — Will Brinson (@WillBrinson) December 23, 2018

Days later, Mayfield couldn’t understand why people thought it was a big deal that he sent the taunting look over at his opponent. “I don’t get why people have a problem with football being a competitive sport,” he said. “You’re supposed to play with emotion, you’re supposed to play with passion. Quite honestly, if you don’t like it, whatever. Football’s not meant to be a soft game. Could care less.”

Don’t expect Mayfield to give the cookie-cutter cliché answers. This is who he is and this is who the Browns needed. For 20 seasons, the losing has been a near constant. It’s the label that marked the entire city until LeBron James undid it. But even with Cavaliers championship, the losing label remained stuck on the Browns. At least until Mayfield arrived.

Would the Mayfield show work everywhere in the NFL? No. But it’s not needed everywhere else. It is needed in Cleveland. Things weren’t going to change there without it. He is the interruption the organization needed and he’s not going to change how he’s conducting business.

“I’m not trying to be anybody else. I’ve been who I am. That’s gotten me here. And I’m going to continue to do that because I try and improve every week and I have that same mindset.

“So, that’s why I said a few weeks ago [that] I’m not trying to get anybody’s approval. I’m trying to win football games and do this for as long as I can. That’s the goal. And the guys inside this locker room know that. They know that I would fight for them. They know that I would take a bullet for them. To me, that’s what matters.

“I don’t have to make any friends outside of this locker room. I’m not trying to do that. Once they’re in here, they know exactly what they’re gonna get. And that’s what really matters.”

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