Baker Mayfield appears to be revved up to play the Cleveland Browns as the newly christened Carolina Panthers starting quarterback gets ready for the start of the 2022 regular season.
Mayfield was named the starting quarterback, beating out Sam Darnold and P.J. Walker for the job. In Week 1, he will play his former team in which he led to the playoffs before they traded for Deshaun Watson and left him packing for Carolina.
According to Buffalo Bills sideline reporter Cynthia Frelund, Mayfield had some interesting words about his mindset going into the Week 1 game.
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"I’m going to f--- them up," he said of the Browns, according to what Frelund shared on the "Around the NFL" podcast.
Frelund, who also works as an analytics analyst for the NFL Network shared the brief conversation she had with Mayfield at Bank of America Stadium.
"I walked up to him and said, ‘I’m so excited to see you, like, go kick some butt,’ I didn’t say that word," she said with a laugh. ... Go kick some butt, especially Week 1, I like cannot wait. And he uses some expletives and I was like, ‘I just hope you’re like ready.’ He was like, ‘I’m gonna bleep them up.’"
Mayfield will have media availability later in the week, and the remark will likely be one of the first questions he faces.
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Frelund told The Associated Press she was trying to be supportive of Mayfield and probably shouldn’t have disclosed what she called a private conversation.
"I was trying to defend Baker. He's in a good spot now and is primed for success. ... I was showing effusive support for a person who had a really rough offseason," she said.
Mayfield talked about the upcoming matchup last week after being named starter.
"Obviously, there’s a lot of attachment there. I’m not going to sit here and be a robot and say it doesn’t mean anything. It will,’" he said.
Mayfield’s former teammate, Myles Garrett, expressed support for Mayfield last week.
"I know he has that swagger, that confidence that borders on arrogance in some people’s eyes. But he’s always played with a chip on his shoulder, and I think we have as an organization as well. So however he feels or goes about it in his mind scape to prepare for the game to play us at the highest level for him, it’s whatever," Garrett said.
"Of course, we’ll use it. It will be motivation. It will be fuel. But at the end of the day a guy is going to do anything he can to try and get one thousandth of a percent better, and if it takes that to hype him up or us using it to hype us up, it’s all going to add to the fire for both teams."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
