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 Supplier 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 present the Browns a “how do you want me now” revenge message?
“Baker Mayfield may have no bother in any respect getting his sport face on for this sport 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 over time that he felt “like a bit of soiled laundry” after the Browns acquired Watson from the Houston Texans in March 2022 after which signed him to a completely 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 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 bit 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 sport on the Jacksonville Jaguars on Sept. 13.
Baker Mayfield’s moxie will likely be on show in Week 2
“The moxie of Baker Mayfield is he’ll maintain his grudges, and he will likely be amped as much as go in opposition to this workforce that he nonetheless has loads of emotions about,” Browns beat reporter Ashley Bastock of the Cleveland Plain Supplier added throughout the podcast episode.
The Buccaneers open the common season with a contest on the Cincinnati Bengals on Sept. 13. It might be attention-grabbing to see what Mayfield has to say concerning the Browns as soon as he can put the Bengals sport behind him.
