Baker Mayfield was as entertained as the rest of us with the finish in Sunday night’s playoff game between the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs. The Cleveland Browns quarterback was far less thrilled with the backlash he received for expressing his admiration on social media.
There were several great games during Divisional Round weekend, and Mayfield decided to share his reaction to them on Twitter. He congratulated all the teams that moved on while noting that he would “much rather be playing.”
The tweet seemed innocent enough, but many fans jumped at the opportunity to troll Mayfield. The former first overall pick seemed to take note when a member of the media jabbed him for not being as good as Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes.
Shortly after sharing his initial observation about how competitive the games were over the weekend, Mayfield wrote in a follow-up that social media is “toxic.” He said he is going to go back to keeping his circle tight, though it’s unclear what that means.
Mayfield recently underwent shoulder surgery to address an injury he played through during a frustrating fourth NFL season. His career has not gone as planned to this point, though he recently made a big prediction about the future.
Many players use criticism to fuel them, but there are times when Mayfield seems like he focuses a bit too much on the negative things people say about him. We saw an example of that recently when he unloaded on a reporter over some trade rumors. Calling social media “toxic” is further proof of how much he listens to outside noise.
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