ON BAKER AND DARNOLD, THE EYES HAVE IT

By STEVE KING

There are many tests to determine if a football player is any good.

They are all helpful, but the one I like the best – and the one that doesn’t get as much attention as it should these days with the advent of all this analytics stuff – is the eye test. Trust your eyes. If you see something, or someone, you like, or don’t like, then say it. Believe it. It was not an optical illusion.

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OK, then, I’ll say it as the Browns get ready to host the New York Jets on Thursday Night Football at FirstEnergy Stadium: When I did the eye test last season on then college quarterbacks Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold, I was wowed by the future Brown and also wowed by the future Jet, but in opposite ways.

Mayfield was unbelievable against Ohio State – and all those great defensive backs – in Oklahoma’s convincing win at Ohio Stadium. He threaded the needle time and time again with his laser shots. The Buckeyes had great coverage on most occasions, but they still couldn’t stop him.

In all my years of watching the Buckeyes – and that’s a lot of years – I saw only one other quarterback do that to them. He played for Stanford in the early 1980s. His name is John Elway. Perhaps you’ve heard of him.

I’m not saying that Mayfield will be another Elway – that would be unfair to both men – but as I watched Mayfield play, I saw Elway that long-ago day in Columbus.

As for USC’s Darnold, who faced the Buckeyes in the Cotton Bowl last year, I was stunned throughout the game that he got that deer-in-the-headlight look early and never lost it. While he was stumbling, fumbling and bumbling in a humbling way, I was so turned off that I silently begged the Browns not to take him with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft last April.

Thankfully, they did not. They took Mayfield. It was absolutely the right move. He just needs a chance to play, and he’ll eventually get that. And when he does, he will prove his worth.

I can’t get past that Darnold was completely bewildered by Ohio State defensive scheme. And, as I thought that night in late December, if a college team could do that, what would pro clubs do to him? I shuddered to think. I still do.

To his credit, Darnold looked really good in the opener this season against the Detroit Lions, but not nearly as good last Sunday against the Miami Dolphins. Rookie quarterbacks struggle in the NFL. They just do. Darnold will be no exception.

He may carve up the Browns, or not. I have no idea. But even if he beats them, I’m certain the Browns made the right choice with Mayfield.

My eyes tell me so, then and now.

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