Brady Quinn apparently prefers potential over results

Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield has done just about everything the team has asked of him since being the No. 1 overall selection in the 2018 NFL Draft.

Mayfield bided his time in training camp behind Tyrod Taylor before taking a firm grasp on the starter’s role following the Week 3 game against the New York Jets.

He also persevered through the daily nonsense of former head coach Hue Jackson, never letting the situation distract him from the task at hand.

Mayfield has also infused the Browns with a much-needed dose of attitude, one that has been long overdue for the franchise.

Most importantly, Mayfield has produced on the field and is closing in on one of the franchise’s season-single Top 10 list in passing yards and touchdown passes.

Those actual accomplishments are nice, but apparently they are not so impressive to Brady Quinn, a former Browns quarterback who is now an analyst for CBS Sports, among others.

In an appearance this week on a CBS Sports podcast, Quinn said that while Mayfield is good, Buffalo Bills rookie quarterback Josh Allen would be Quinn’s man if he were running an NFL franchise:

“Right now, Baker’s playing the best, but I just feel like Josh Allen, he oozes so much potential. He has given that team and city hope. He is so good. And he has so much upside. I would rank the rookie quarterbacks in so far as they’ve performed this year: Baker, Josh Allen, Lamar [Jackson], Sam Darnold, Josh Rosen.

“They’re not all that far apart from one another. They’ve all struggled to have a high completion percentage. At times they’ve all struggled to take care of the football. But they’ve all demonstrated at times the things we liked about them in college and we’re seeing it in the NFL.”

We’ll give you a moment, Browns fans, to compose yourself before we continue.

Potential is nice and all, but right now it is hard to make the case that Allen is delivering anything other than right now for the Bills. Allen is tall (6-foot-5) and has a “big arm,” but other than that, what has he really done?

Quinn is entitled to his opinion, of course, but where he goes a bit of track is when he states that this year’s group of rookie quarterbacks - Mayfield, Allen, Sam Darnold of the New York Jets, Josh Rosen of the Arizona Cardinals and Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens - are “not all that far apart” on the field.

Let’s quickly break that down and see if we can help Mr. Quinn see the error of his ways. On the season:

• Mayfield is completing 64.4 percent of his passes on 376 attempts, with 19 touchdowns, 13 combined turnovers (10 interceptions and three fumbles) and has a quarterback rating of 93.4.
• Darnold is completing 55.9 percent of his passes on 313 attempts, with 12 touchdowns, 15 combined turnovers (all interceptions) and has a quarterback rating of 69.5.
• Rosen is completing 55.4 percent of his passes on 314 attempts, with 10 touchdowns, 16 combined turnovers (12 interceptions and four fumbles) and has a quarterback rating of 68.3.
• Jackson is completing 58.4 percent of his passes on 101 attempts, with four touchdowns, five combined turnovers (three interceptions and two fumbles) and has a quarterback rating of 79.9.
• And Allen? He is completing 52.4 percent of his passes on 227 attempts, with five touchdowns, 12 combined turnovers (nine interceptions and three fumbles) and has a quarterback rating of 62.8.

We’re not sure what Quinn is looking at, but that does not appear to be a group of quarterbacks who are “not all that far apart.”

At the end of the day it doesn’t really matter. It might be fun to link the quarterbacks together because they were all part of the same draft class, but they will succeed or fail as individuals, not as part of some collective group.

The biggest takeaway here is that Mayfield has clearly proven to be the best of the bunch through the first 13 games of their respective careers.

Which is all that matters when it comes to the Browns and their fans.