CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Drafting No. 1 in the 2018 NFL Draft, the Cleveland Browns desperately needed a quarterback, but they also were in the market for a flag planter. The first was a necessity, the second a luxury, but if the quarterback could play, the fact that he might vociferously stand up for Cleveland, the Browns and their fans was a heckuva bonus.

Baker Mayfield arrived to plant a flag for Cleveland. In the second half of last season, he did.

In 2019, the Browns’ quarterback has been inconsistent. But their flag planter has gone missing.

Nick Bosa put some Ohio football fans in a bind Monday night in the San Francisco 49ers’ 31-3 destruction of the Browns, not by shattering the team and Mayfield with his pass rushing in the present, but by mocking a Mayfield move of the past. If you are both a fan of the Browns and Buckeyes, that was a guy you used to root for but who is now on a team you don’t root for, sacking and then charade attacking a guy you used to hate but now you root for.

Few Ohio football fans loved Mayfield in 2017 when he planted a flag in Ohio Stadium after leading Oklahoma to a win in the Horseshoe. Most loved him when he started winning games as a Brown in 2018.

That’s sports. You dislike the flag planter ... until he’s your flag planter.

That’s Mayfield. A quarterback ... and a flag planter. You can’t separate the two, and that complicates everything. It’s still reasonable for a second-year starting quarterback to have low moments in the NFL. The fact that Mayfield had a terrible night, once again done in by his own lack of rhythm and, at times, by his receivers and line, is not unusual. I’ve said that before. As others have said, we can’t have a referendum on Mayfield’s overall worthiness and future as a franchise quarterback after every game.

But as a flag planter? Man, Mayfield had it handed to him.

To summarize, Mayfield needs to play better. But there’s extra attention on him because of how he acts. The NFL world didn’t take this kind of glee when Carson Wentz or Deshaun Watson or Lamar Jackson had rough stretches. Mayfield has brought all that on himself, and then some of us in the media have eagerly gone on that ride.

Mayfield’s failures aren’t normal failures. They’re magnified. That mostly affects us -- how we watch and evaluate him. As a sports writer I’m never going to encourage an interesting athlete to stop talking. And Mayfield won’t stop. Just like he won’t stop doing commercials. That’s all part of the package, and that’s great. Mayfield didn’t throw an interception because he’s endorsing insurance, and he didn’t dangle the football on a scramble and fumble because he gets in media fights with Colin Cowherd and Rex Ryan.

He’s not playing well as a quarterback. But he’s getting mocked by Bosa, and creating extra worry for Browns fans, because he’s a flag planter. He’s understandably struggling as an NFL sophomore. He’s failing as a savior.

Again, there’s no separating it. Chasing Nick Chubb down the field in the Baltimore game and waving his arms in celebration while almost reaching 19 miles per hour? That’s not what a quarterback does. That’s what a flag planter does. It all comes from the same place. Mayfield fueled his entire, well-known existence -- walk-on to Heisman winner to No. 1 pick -- with the same energy that led Bosa to plant an imaginary flag and set most OSU fans into retaliation overdrive.

Bosa stood up to the flag planter -- because in 2017 the Buckeyes couldn’t beat the quarterback.

That’s not a shot, because Ohio State did beat Mayfield in Oklahoma in 2016. So that on-field score was already tied. But even if you found Mayfield to be a crass, arrogant showman in 2017, well, he led the Sooners to the College Football Playoff and won the Heisman Trophy. He didn’t just play like a quarterback. He played like a flag planter.

That’s what has been missing this year. By the way, I don’t think we can all use Brett Favre, the NFL’s all-time leader in interceptions, as a Mayfield comparison and then freak out each time Mayfield is picked off. It happens. He had Bosa wrapped around his leg when he sailed the first throw that was picked. He was trying to escape a pass rush when he failed to protect the ball and had it knocked out for his second turnover. And the second pick hit Antonio Callaway in the hands on the goal line, a Mayfield throw that was good but not great as right guard Eric Kush and right tackle Chris Hubbard were pushed back into his face.

As a quarterback, Mayfield did his job there. Callaway has to catch it. But as a flag planter, Mayfield needed to rip that ball in perfectly. He didn’t.

He appears, at times, to be thinking like a struggling second-year quarterback instead of a flag planter. He leads the league with eight interceptions, but I think perhaps the most troubling part of that stat are the throws he’s now reluctant to make. I thought there were at least two windows Monday night when he could have threaded a ball to Odell Beckham, and he didn’t. When he’s holding the ball and not throwing in rhythm, as he did successfully against Baltimore last week, it makes you wonder where that Oklahoma Mayfield went.

This is a time of overreaction. But there are plenty of appropriate reactions. Mayfield once again didn’t see the field as you’d like, and he wasn’t as accurate as you’d like. Everything else about the Browns crumbled as well, once that touchdown ball late in the second quarter that would have cut the 49ers’ lead to 14-10 bounced off Callaway’s hands for a turnover.

But I think my most disappointing Mayfield play occurred with 1:20 left in the third quarter and the Browns trailing 28-3. On third-and-10 near midfield, Mayfield faced immediate pressure as both tackles allowed the pocket to collapse. Mayfield escaped the sack and retreated to his right 15 yards behind the line of scrimmage. He then veered left, set his feet ... and threw the ball away out of bounds.

That’s what a quarterback would do. But a flag planter? I thought he might find a receiver racing open, heave a miracle ball for a 30-yard gain, do a back flip, turn that into a touchdown drive and prep the Browns for a chance at a comeback.

That’s what Mayfield has led some of us to hold out hope for.

Right now, he’s just another inconsistent QB trying to get it together. But Bosa, and Mayfield himself, won’t let us forget the other thing he has been, and is still expected to be.

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