equal footing and giving each a plausible
shot at the Super Bowl.
The pain, however, was harsher than
expected; the 1-31 stretch cost general
manager Sashi Brown his job. He was re-
placed in late 2017 by John Dorsey, a for-
mer pro linebacker who spent 26 years
working in NFL front offices. “We felt
like we wanted to have more of that tra-
ditional football presence,” says Browns
executive vice president JW Johnson,
the son-in-law of Browns owners Jimmy
and Dee Haslam.
In one of the first signals that
Cleveland was ready to start at least
trying to win, Dorsey traded draft picks
for three established talents, including
wide receiver Jarvis Landry and safety
Damarious Randall, on the same day.
“You do that and it begins to send a
message to players across the NFL and the
agent community,” Dorsey says from his
golf cart at the Browns’ practice facility
during training camp. “You know what?
Cleveland is slowly going to get this thing
turned around.”
Thanks to moves made by the previous
front office, the Browns had four of the
first 35 picks in the 2018 draft, including
the first selection. Not every fan wanted
Mayfield, who reminded them of another
former Heisman Trophy winner, Johnny
Manziel, who flamed out with the Browns.
Like Manziel, Mayfield was cocky and
under sized, and had been arrested for
disorderly conduct while in college. “My
worry,” says Eddie Miller, a brewery man-
ager in Granville, Ohio, “was that Baker
Mayfield had an a--hole problem.”
If Dorsey had similar concerns, May-
field assuaged them during their first
meeting. The general manager’s first ques-
tion for Mayfield was “So, you like food
trucks?” Mayfield, who had been taken
into custody near a food truck, laughed.
“He’s a weirdo, so his tests are a little bit
different,” says Mayfield of Dorsey’s eval-
uation process. “If I got frazzled, wasn’t
able to handle myself and let it affect me
later on, I don’t think they would have
drafted me. A short-term memory for a
quarterback is pretty important.”
Mayfield showed there was substance
behind the strut. In his first game as a
rookie, he came off the bench to rally
the Browns to a home win over the New
York Jets— Cleveland’s first victory in
21 months. “The energy of the stadium,
the whole energy of Cleveland, just
changed,” says Landry. “Everybody had
that ‘Here we go’ type feeling.” After May-
field threw for three touchdowns in a win
over the Atlanta Falcons in November—
one of an NFL- rookie-record 27 he threw
over the season—he informed reporters
that he woke up “feeling pretty danger-
ous.” That quote now adorns a mural in
downtown Cleveland.
In Beckham, Mayfield has a weapon as
electric on the field as he is off of it. Beck-
ham was a three-time Pro Bowler for the
Giants, but he also provided endless fod-
der for the Big Apple tabloids. He partied
before a playoff game, got suspended for
scuffling on the field, criticized his team-
mates and coaches. Beckham tells TIME
that his reputation as a troublemaker is
“created by a lot of bullsh-t,” and he sees
the upside of leaving New York for Cleve-
land. “The only way I would be able to start
over is to be traded somewhere else,” he
says. “You’re always going to be reminded
of your past. It’s always going to be a reliv-
ing, recurring thing. So I’ve reset myself.
I’ve forgiven myself for the things that I’ve
done, regardless if anybody else does.”
Cleveland also offered a do-over to
running back Kareem Hunt, who led
the NFL in rushing yards as a rookie in
2017 but was released by the Kansas City
Chiefs last season after video emerged of
him getting into a physical altercation
with a woman in the hallway of a hotel
and apartment building. On the tape,
Hunt can be seen shoving and kicking the
woman. No criminal charges were filed,
but the NFL suspended Hunt for the first
eight games of this season. “When you
spend time with Kareem, you see that he
has the ability to be the kind of man he
needs to be,” says Browns co-owner Dee
Haslam. “He has a lot of work to do.”
The heightened expectations have
brought heightened attention. The
Browns have added some 12,000 season-
ticket holders since the start of last year,
and the average age of the new fans is 36,
according to the team, compared with
54 for the prior fan base. There are now
390 “Browns Backers” fan clubs, with al-
most 62,000 members in 48 states and
13 foreign countries. Membership has
jumped 31% since before Mayfield was
drafted. CBS has assigned its top broad-
casting team to the team’s season opener,
on Sept. 8, and three of the Browns’ first
five games will air in prime time, on na-
tional TV. “Hell, they were probably
banned from being on TV in the past,”
jokes Cleveland’s four-term mayor, Frank
Jackson. “Waste of valuable airtime.”
This is The poinT at which a reality
check is in order. “You’re not a Cleve-
land fan,” says McNeil, organizer of the
0-16 parade, “unless you’re thinking in
the back of your head, How are we going
to screw this up?”
Cleveland’s rookie head coach, Fred-
die Kitchens, is quick to remind his
players—and anyone else within earshot,
including visiting reporters—that the
Browns finished last season under .500.
Only the team’s punter, Britton Colquitt,
has played in the Super Bowl, which he
won with Denver. “We’ve got a bunch of
good players,” Kitchens tells TIME. “But
collectively, individually, they’ve never
won anything.”
Mayfield echoes his coach. “It’s a pro-
cess,” he says. But his receiver, Landry,
takes a different tack. “I’m not going to
say, ‘Be patient,’ ” says Landry, who made
his fourth Pro Bowl last season. “They’ve
been patient long enough, you know
what I mean? I say it with complete con-
fidence. It’s time.”
Landry’s message may be the one
more in tune with a city that still strug-
gles with high poverty and crime rates
but is rewriting its story. “We’ve been
through that cycle of bemoaning,” says
Mayor Jackson, from his large office on
the second floor of city hall. “We ain’t got
time for that. They win, they win. They
lose, they lose. But the expectation is that
they will do well. And people are going to
hold them to that.”
Sports
Odell Beckham Jr. has given Cleveland
another marquee star
RON SCHWANE—AP
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