Every NFL Team Told Baker Mayfield to Change Who He Was

Baker Mayfield did not arrive quietly, and the NFL did not quite know what to do with him. On New Heights, he described a league-wide message from his early years: turn it down, be quieter, be a more traditional franchise quarterback. His answer, in the end, was to stay himself — and to find a team that wanted exactly that.

The full conversation

New Heights is the Wondery show hosted by brothers Jason and Travis Kelce, with new episodes on Wednesdays, mixing football, family and pop culture. Mayfield joins the Kelce brothers on the show to talk about his NFL journey, and this moment — what teams told him to change — comes from that conversation. You can watch full episodes on the official New Heights YouTube channel.

More moments: New Heights · Sports Moments

What happened in this moment

Mayfield told the Kelce brothers that teams in the draft process wanted him to change his personality. His confidence, his expressiveness, his willingness to confront critics — all of it, he said, was treated as a problem to fix. He was told to turn it down and become the kind of quarterback teams felt comfortable with. The turning point came in Tampa, where the general manager and head coach told him simply to be himself.

Why everyone is talking about it

The clip struck a nerve because it is about more than football. It is about workplaces that ask people to shrink themselves to fit in, and about what happens when someone refuses. Mayfield’s story also explains his career in a new light: the ups and downs make more sense when you hear how long he was asked to be someone else.

The background

Mayfield was the number one overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, then cycled through several teams before re-establishing himself as a starter. That journey is part of why the clip resonates. He did not take a straight path to success. He took the long way round, and the version of him that finally stuck was the one teams had once asked him to hide.

Key takeaways

• Mayfield said NFL teams told him to change his personality and turn it down.
• He was urged to become a more traditional franchise quarterback.
• In Tampa, he was told to just be himself — and it worked.

Source: New Heights, hosted by Jason & Travis Kelce. Full episodes on the official New Heights YouTube channel.

Frequently asked questions

What did teams want Baker Mayfield to change? He said teams wanted him to tone down his confident, expressive personality and fit a more traditional franchise-quarterback mould.

Where did he find a different message? In Tampa, where the general manager and head coach told him to just be himself.

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Jane Brooks covers the podcast moments everyone ends up talking about — the interviews, the slip-ups and the stories celebrities tell when the conversation gets comfortable. She runs the written side of Pods Talk Media.