Paul Daugherty

@EnquirerDoc

Baker Mayfield has taken a punchline franchise and made its morbid past obsolete. It has been the most amazing thing.

He has lifted dead weight like it was air in a jar, and he has done it in less than three months. You could spend a year doing nothing but sighing and you wouldn’t come close to capturing the Cleveland football experience since the Browns’ return in 1999.

Then just like that, Mayfield got his chance. At various times in his 11-start career, Mayfield has been quick-footed like a younger Ben Roethlisberger, extending plays to make sandlot magic. He has been accurate like Drew Brees, completing 71 percent of his passes in his last five games. Not coincidentally, the Browns won four of those games.

Does anyone believe Mayfield is going to get worse?

Not bad for a guy no team but Cleveland thought was the best quarterback in the draft last spring.

Baker Mayfield is too short. Everyone knows that. You can’t play quarterback in the NFL at 6 feet tall. Unless you’re Drew Brees.

Mayfield is too full of himself. He’s a rebel. The NFL doesn’t like rebels, especially not at quarterback. Unless you’re Brett Favre. Or that Namath guy.

We like this kid Josh Allen. He’s 6-foot-5, throws lightning bolts. Now that’s a quarterback. We really like Josh Rosen and Sam Darnold. We might take a flyer on Lamar Jackson, if he’s still around in Round 2.

Mayfield? He played in the Big 12. Every QB throws for miles in the Big 12. Let him be somebody else’s bust.

Don’t you love it when the experts are wrong? Not just wrong, but so blatantly out to lunch, you need a restaurant critic to find them?

NFL personnel types can lack imagination. They know what they know: Height, weight, arm strength, Wonderlic tests and banal one-on-one interviews full of stupid questions that have nothing to do with whether the interview subject can play football. They’re so into their analyses and psycho-analyses, they miss what’s right in front of them.

Baker Mayfield is a badass. A foxhole guy, with a boulder on his shoulder the size of Ashtabula. He had to walk on in college. Twice. First at Texas Tech, then at Oklahoma, where he won the Heisman Trophy. You think this guy doesn’t love the game? Almost as much as he loves shutting everyone up.

He reminds me of Boomer Esiason. Boomer had what the late Boston sportswriter George Kimball called duende. Doo-en-day. The dictionary says duende is “a quality of passion and inspiration, a spirit.’’

Players gravitated toward Esiason. Players trusted in him and listened to him. The Bengals have never had a bigger huddle presence than Number 7.

Mayfield has duende. I’m fascinated with him and the impact he has had on the Browns already. Rosen and Darnold haven’t done that. Jackson has, to a lesser extent. Allen? The big prototype is completing 52 percent of his passes for the Bills. He has thrown more picks (9) than TD passes (6).

There is much to be said for a QB’s ability to lead. No position in any sport anywhere requires the intangible Right Stuff as much as NFL quarterback does. Players want to play for Mayfield. He makes them better for his presence. He elevates. This is so obvious, even an NFL talent evaluator could see it.

Timing has been perfect for Mayfield, sure. The Browns opened the season with Pittsburgh and New Orleans, difficult games Mayfield watched from the bench. His first start came against bad Oakland. Since, he has faced Tampa, Cincinnati, and bad and broken defenses in Kansas City and Atlanta.

Mayfield has benefited from rookie running back Nick Chubb’s presence in the lineup. He’s better with Freddie Kitchens coordinating the offense. Not the fired Todd Haley, who listed Mayfield third on his QB depth chart to begin the year, behind Tyrod Taylor and, um, Drew Stanton.

The all-consuming heroism won’t last, of course. This is the NFL. Mayfield does have a plateful of growth to devour. He can be excitable. He can’t be running around celebrating like a high school kid who just got his driver’s license. His cockiness could alienate some, should his performance drop off. It’s a juggling act.

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Mayfield has a great feel for the game. But at some point, defenses will figure him out. They will learn that keeping him in the pocket is preferable to forcing him out of it. They will benefit from an accumulation of video, finding weaknesses that others hadn’t found. He will have to adjust, and then we will know more about Baker Mayfield’s potential. That’s then. Now, it’s fascinating just watching the heavy lifting this kid is doing. Entire cities weigh a lot.

The only time the Bengals faced Mayfield before Sunday, he was 17-for-22 with 245 yards and three touchdowns. In the first half.