Mayfield, Barkley make bet on Offensive Rookie of the Year winner
Baker Mayfield and Saquon Barkley are presumptive favorites for the Offensive Rookie of the Year award, which is set to be handed out Saturday at the eighth annual NFL Honors show.
The star rookies apparently know that the trophy is going home with one of them, and the close friends have a bet on who'll come out on top.
"It's for a chain," Barkley said, according to Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com. "The loser's got to get someone else a chain. We get to pick the chain and we get to have fun with it because obviously everyone's talking about who's going to win, and at the end of the day we'd love to see each other win, but we'd also love to see ourselves win too, but we made a little bet with it just to show how friendly we are that it's bigger than just the award."
On Thursday, the New York Giants running back beat the Cleveland Browns quarterback for the Pepsi NFL Rookie of the Year fan-vote award after finishing behind only Ezekiel Elliott with 1,307 rushing yards.
However, as arguably shown by Dak Prescott winning the award over his teammate Elliott in 2016, positional value does seem to factor into the decision-making for the league's award.
Mayfield did have a relatively slow start to his campaign, but he exploded after head coach Hue Jackson and offensive coordinator Todd Haley were fired at the end of October. The latter was replaced by Freddie Kitchens, whose dynamic partnership with the QB earned him the top job in Cleveland.
The young passer broke the NFL record for rookie touchdown passes with 27, previously held by Peyton Manning and Russell Wilson, and led the Browns to five wins in their final seven games.
"Baker is amazing," Barkley said. "He went one, I went two. He won the Heisman, I won Pepsi Rookie of the Year. There's nothing I can say bad about Baker. He's one of my good friends. We're actually doing a trip with each other coming up soon. I just love his play, what he did for Cleveland this year."
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