Gone are the days of Rex Ryan making headlines for his outlandish press conferences as a head coach. His hot takes are still getting attention though as an ESPN analyst.
For his latest act, Ryan targeted Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield. During a segment on Mike Greenberg’s show Get Up on Monday, Ryan went on a rant about the Browns offense and called Mayfield “overrated as hell.”
Pat McAfee’s reaction to the comment is likely how most Browns fans reacted to hearing it. And on Wednesday, Mayfield, who has never been shy about responding to his critics, got his chance to react.
“It’s whatever,” Mayfield asserted. “In the wise words of Freddie Kitchens, if you don’t wear brown and orange you don’t matter. And Rex Ryan doesn’t have any colors right now for a reason.”
Mayfield has a point. Ryan hasn’t worn any colors for nearly three years now since he was fired by the Buffalo Bills before the final game of the regular season in 2016. While the Bills went on to make their first playoff appearance in 19 years under new head coach Sean McDermott one year later, Ryan was passed over for any coaching or coordinator gigs and eventually took a job with ESPN.
Whether or not Ryan ever gets an NFL coaching gig again remains to be seen but in the meantime his latest comments are the latest round of outside noise targeted at the Browns and Mayfield. The Heisman winner does his best to block that stuff out.
“I think it’s something you really gotta be conscious of,” he said. “You’re surrounded in an environment where you hear a lot of things. Stuff pops up on your phone, or stuff pops up on the TV. People talk so you just have to make a conscious decision to protect your locker room and take care of your guys and block out the negative stuff.”
And the best way to do that is to focus on the task at hand.
“Being singular focused on the week ahead,” Mayfield said.”The most important game is this next one.”
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