Baker Mayfield is more than ready to take on his former team. The Carolina Panthers quarterback spoke to Cynthia Frelund of the NFL Network after the Panthers’ final preseason game against the Buffalo Bills. Frelund shared her conversation with Mayfield while appearing on the Around the NFL podcast with Dan Hanzus, Marc Sessler and Gregg Rosenthal.
“I walked up to him and said, ‘I’m so excited to see you,’ like, ‘Go kick some butt,’ [but] I didn’t say that word,” Frelund said, per Cleveland.com. “‘Go kick some butt, especially Week 1, I cannot wait.’ And he uses some expletives and I was like, ‘I just hope you’re like ready.’ He was like, ‘I’m gonna bleep them up.’”
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Hanzus asked Frelund if that was a direct quote “I’m gonna f— them up, is that what the quote was?” Frelund said yes while also mentioning she didn’t want to say curse words on air as she doesn’t want to get in trouble. The Panthers will face the Cleveland Browns in the season opener on Sept. 11. The Browns traded Mayfield to the Panthers in July after acquiring Deshaun Watson via trade from the Houston Texans in March. Browns players know the game against the Panthers is big but they don’t have any ill will towards Mayfield.
“He’s my former teammate,” Browns defensive lineman Myles Garrett said last Tuesday. “But there’s no rivalry between me and him and there’s no rivalry between the Panthers and the Browns. Yes, he was here, but that doesn’t mean I have an added sense of urgency to get to him. I want to play my best and whatever’s in the cards, that’s it for me. If I can help my team win, if I can put them in the best position to win I’m going to do that, and if I can get a couple sacks along the way, I would kind of enjoy that too.”
Frelund went to Twitter to clarify the exchange she had with Mayfield. “Oh boy, this is silly. Don’t make this more than it is,” she wrote. “I was wishing him good luck, colorfully. He agreed with me, colorfully. What do you expect anyone to do in this situation…”
