NFL followers got a tasty Week 2 matchup for the 2026 season when it was discovered final week that the Cleveland Browns will play on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sept. 20.
That’s monitoring to be simply the second time that Tampa Bay quarterback Baker Mayfield will face the Browns since they moved on from him following the 2021 season. Throughout a current version of the “Orange and Brown Discuss Podcast,” Browns beat reporter Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain Vendor warned the AFC North membership about having to go up in opposition to the Mayfield-led Buccaneers later this 12 months.
Baker Mayfield ready to provide the Browns a “how do you want me now” revenge message?
“Baker Mayfield may have no hassle by any means getting his recreation face on for this recreation in opposition to the Browns coming to city,” Cabot defined. “All he has to inform himself, ‘They solid me apart for Deshaun Watson and look the way it went. ‘How do you want me now, Cleveland?'”
Mayfield hasn’t hidden through the years that he felt “like a chunk of soiled laundry” after the Browns acquired Watson from the Houston Texans in March 2022 after which signed him to a totally assured five-year, $230M contract. Later that 12 months, Mayfield began for the Carolina Panthers in opposition to the Browns. Cleveland earned a 26-24 win that afternoon.
In the meantime, Watson has made simply 19 regular-season begins for the Browns. Cleveland reportedly doesn’t plan to deliver him again subsequent 12 months, no matter how he performs by way of January 2027.
This previous winter, Mayfield fired a shot directed at new Atlanta Falcons head coach Kevin Stefanski associated to the Browns buying and selling Mayfield “like a chunk of rubbish” when Stefanski was Cleveland’s head coach in 2022. Because it pertains to the present Browns, it appears as of the morning of Might 18 that Watson will enter the 2026 season as Cleveland’s QB1 over 2025 rookie Shedeur Sanders. The Browns open the marketing campaign with a recreation on the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sept. 13.
Baker Mayfield’s moxie shall be on show in Week 2
“The moxie of Baker Mayfield is he’ll maintain his grudges, and he shall be amped as much as go in opposition to this crew that he nonetheless has a variety of emotions about,” Browns beat reporter Ashley Bastock of the Cleveland Plain Vendor added through the podcast episode.
The Buccaneers open the common season with a contest on the Cincinnati Bengals on Sept. 13. It may very well be fascinating to see what Mayfield has to say in regards to the Browns as soon as he can put the Bengals recreation behind him.
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