{"id":42142,"date":"2026-01-22T00:08:05","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breakingnews.azontree.com\/?p=42142"},"modified":"2026-01-22T00:08:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:08:05","slug":"breaking-browns-legend-claps-back-at-baker-mayfield-for-going-after-kevin-stefanski","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breakingnews.azontree.com\/?p=42142","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING : Browns&#8217; legend claps back at Baker Mayfield for going after Kevin Stefanski"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/c_crop,x_0,y_754,w_4515,h_2539\/c_fill,w_2160,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto\/images%2FImagnImages%2Fmmsport%2Fbrowns_digest%2F01kfh9bkjykyjdjjrja2.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-0\">The Cleveland Browns decided in 2022 to end Baker Mayfield\u2019s run as the team\u2019s quarterback after just four seasons, sending the former first-overall pick via trade to the Carolina Panthers for a mid-round draft pick.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\">But even as Kevin Stefanski\u2019s six-year tenure as head coach of the Browns also ended abruptly a little over two weeks ago, Mayfield revealed through a social media post he still harbors bitter feelings because of the way things went down.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\">Now, one of the team\u2019s greatest players ever has thrown himself into the mix, stepping up for Stefanski.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I could be wrong&#8230;but I&#39;ve heard that communication is a 2-way street and there were no laws against you (Baker) sending Stefanski a text or calling him after you got traded\ud83e\uddd0 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/y7hI6zptax\">https:\/\/t.co\/y7hI6zptax<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Joe Thomas (@joethomas73) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/joethomas73\/status\/2014017318934692015?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 21, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\">Hall of Fame offensive tackle Joe Thomas wrote back to Mayfield on his X account, stating \u201cI could be wrong&#8230;but I&#8217;ve heard that communication is a 2-way street and there were no laws against you (Baker) sending Stefanski a text or calling him after you got traded.\u201d<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\">Thomas\u2019 comments come in response to a Mayfield post accusing, among other things, the club of shipping him away \u201clike a piece of garbage\u201d, and never getting a phone call or text message from Stefanski, then head coach in Cleveland. Mayfield\u2019s post was a reply to a message published by D. Orlando Ledbetter, a longtime award-winning beat reporter for the Atlanta Falcons &#8212; Stefanski\u2019s new team &#8211;, pointing out the coach\u2019s struggles at the quarterback position over the years with the Browns.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\">Mayfield, now with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, closed out his response by expressing how he was looking forward to facing Stefanski twice a year in the NFC South.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\">Thomas &#8212; who played his entire 11-year career in Cleveland &#8212; left the game after Cleveland\u2019s 0-16 campaign in 2017, the season before the Browns selected Mayfield first overall. Stefanski didn\u2019t come on board until 2020, when the Browns went 11-5 and snuck into the playoffs for the first time since 2002. Under the Stefanski\/Mayfield rule, Cleveland won its first and only playoff game since 1994 during that postseason.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\">This wasn&#8217;t the first time Thomas decided to stand in Stefanski&#8217;s corner. Even though he never played for Stefanski, the O-lineman turned analyst wasn\u2019t exactly happy when the Browns dismissed their most successful head coach in three decades.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\">&#8220;It&#8217;s definitely a big risk. It makes me nervous because you can do a lot worse than Kevin Stefanski; he&#8217;s a good coach. Are there better coaches out there available? I don&#8217;t know. Maybe, but he was a pretty good coach. It&#8217;s definitely a big swing and a big risk to say we&#8217;re going to fire him and we don&#8217;t have exactly a guy we know we&#8217;re going to bring in day one to replace him,&#8221; Thomas said at the time to ESPN Cleveland.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\">Regardless of how things ended up for Mayfield in Cleveland, he did get four years to show he could become the long-term answer for the franchise and failed at it. Then, he bounced around a couple of more teams before finally landing in Tampa Bay, where he\u2019s making the most out of his opportunity, something he wasn\u2019t able to do before.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\">And while Mayfield isn\u2019t wrong to expect some kind of communication from the head coach after being shipped out in a trade, his bitterness might be better directed towards the front office that made the deal, a.k.a. the men responsible for acquiring Deshaun Watson in that infamous trade with the Houston Texans, essentially signaling the end of Mayfield\u2019s tenure in Cleveland.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\">But whatever the case may be, all eyes will be glued to the T.V. once the Buccaneers and Falcons face each other, twice, once the new season begins.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"inline-text-13\"><\/h3>\n<figure><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of Cleveland&#8217;s top players ever took sides with the former head coach after being called out on social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cleveland-browns"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>BREAKING : Browns&#039; 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