Jim Ingraham: If it weren't for bad luck ... and bad play ... Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield might be in a better mood

So I guess you could say Baker Mayfield picked a bad year to be Baker Mayfield. As if living next door to Alice Cooper wasn't hard enough. This was supposed to be the year Mayfield showed his employers that he was too good for them to live without. That he did indeed have enough quarterbacking chops to justify the monster contract extension that quarterbacks at the upper end of the "chops" scale tend to get. The best way to do that, of course, is to lead your team not just into the playoffs, but deep into the playoffs. As deep into the playoffs, preferably, as teams and quarterbacks can go. You know, Tom Brady territory. Mayfield seemed to be advantageously positioned to do exactly that in 2021. He had surrounding him arguably the best roster in the NFL. He had the best running back tandem in the league. He had an enviable group of receivers, led by a fully-healthy ball snatcher so famous he goes by his initials more than his name. Mayfield also had the good fortune of operating behind what many felt was the best offensive line in the league, and maybe one of the best in franchise history. As his head coach, de facto play caller and partner in pigskin legerdemain, Mayfield had a creative, forward-thinking quarterback cultivator capable, it seemed, of squeezing season after season of reasons to believe that this, finally, was the franchise quarterback Cleveland forever craved. Then 2021 happened. The Mayfield stock market crashed, in every way imaginable, including this one: roughly 48 hours before the start of the critically important Game 14 in a 17-game season — with that very season itself hanging in the balance — Browns coaches were frantically prepping for quarterback duty ... one Nicholas Clayton Mullens. If you listen closely, you'll hear no barking in the Dawg Pound. "These are the circumstances we are in," said Nick The Quick Study, in a Zoom-powered media conclave Saturday, following a makeshift practice for What's Left Of The Browns. Mullens has been elevated from the Browns practice squad to the squad of players who are actually going to get into the game. The reason, obviously, is the latest round of positive COVID tests that has stripped the Browns of 20-something players — the numbers seem to change by the hour — about half of them starters. The scheduled game with the Raiders was pushed back from Saturday to Monday in the forlorn hope that its competitive imbalance might at least be reduced from a flaming travesty to merely sadly unfortunate. Which brings us back to Baker Mayfield and his sadly unfortunate season. One of the positive COVID tests came from Mayfield, which prohibits him from playing in Monday's game. Ditto for second violinist Case Keenum and his positive test. Hence, Nicholas Clayton Mullens. Say what you will about Mayfield the player, Mayfield the Progressive pitchman or Mayfield the punching bag Odell Beckham Jr.'s father never had, the dude HAS had his share of bad luck this season — and the shares of a handful of teammates as well. Nothing grabs at the hamstring of success more than a series of injuries that makes it difficult for a quarterback to throw the ball, run with the ball, walk without a limp, lead a team, avoid the injury tent, rally a team, overcome Beckhamgate and/or to prove to your bosses that you are indeed a franchise quarterback worth the massive contract extension that most franchise quarterbacks get. Is it any wonder that Mayfield has been in a bad mood for much of this season? For the Oklahoma Kid the 2021 season has been Murphy's Law on steroids. Literally, anything that could go wrong — or couldn't go wrong, but did anyway — has gone wrong in Mayfield's wrong-way season. Now this. Now COVID. With a chance to overcome the undertow of disasters he's endured this season by leading the Browns to a 5-0 charge down the stretch and into the playoffs, Mayfield gets sacked by COVID. The Browns having 20-plus positive tests while trying to complete a 5-0 sprint to the finish line might be the most Browns thing ever, except that they put themselves into this win-win-win-win-or-go-home situation by their win-lose-win-lose-win-lose exercise in mediocrity through most of this season. Mayfield's inability to stay healthy and play at peak Mayfield has hampered the quest. But you can't criticize a player for getting hurt. A player can, however, curse so much bad luck happening to him in the most important year of his career. That may be why Mayfield has been a little testy this season. He had the potential to make this year his closing argument to the jury of Browns officials who will decide whether he is or isn't a championship-caliber Mr. Right. Now, with a COVID-riddled roster, he may have missed his chance. Contact Jim Ingraham at jingraham4@gmail.com and follow him @Jim_Ingraham on Twitter.