How Vikings’ Sheldon Richardson helped Myles Garrett and Baker Mayfield avert a split after the helmet incide

MINNEAPOLIS — Former Browns defensive tackle Sheldon Richardson, now with the Vikings, is old school and knows the rules of the locker room. Taught by the grizzled old vets of the game, he doesn’t mess around.

Your teammates are your brothers and nothing should come between you.

So when former Browns defensive end Olivier Vernon showed Richardson the video of Baker Mayfield criticizing Myles Garrett on national television right after the helmet incident with Mason Rudolph in 2019 — telling Fox Sports’ Erin Andrews on the field that it was “inexcusable” and that he “hurt this team” — Richardson knew just what to do.

“OV’s a little more upfront and little more blunt with it,’’ Richardson told cleveland.com during training camp. “So I laid it on [Mayfield] easy, and he understood. It was kind of water under the bridge and nothing too serious or too dramatic. We just left it at that. We didn’t want it lingering in the locker room. Situations like that can get drawn out and blown way out of proportion. I’ve seen it happen.’’

Richardson, who took less money with the Vikings this season as a matter of principle after the Browns wanted him back at less than the $12 million he was owed, estimates the encounter with Mayfield took about seven or eight minutes. Of course, Mayfield’s remarks were made in the heat of the moment after a 21-7 victory over the Steelers, before he knew that Garrett said Rudolph called him the ‘n’ word, a charge Rudolph denied.

“It wasn’t a long conversation,’’ Richardson said. “It wasn’t drawn out. I just said ‘if you ever made a mistake, would you want your brothers who you look at every day, day in and day out to sit here and go against you and make you feel some type of way and like you can’t come back it from it type deal?’ You never want to put your teammates in that type of situation. There really wasn’t nothing to it. He understood it. I don’t know if he felt bad about it or anything like because some things are understood and don’t have to be said too often.’’

Richardson told Mayfield, “don’t let the media and the celebrity part of being a football player get in the way of being an actual brother to your teammates. Right, wrong or indifferent, if it’s a situation that’s too bad for you to not comment on, you’re better off saying nothing at all.’ He just looked at me with a straight face and said ‘you’re absolutely right’ and just kept going and we went to practice the next day.’’

Richardson, who played for the Browns in 2019-20, learned first-hand what it’s like to need the support of your teammates. In 2015 with the Jets, he was suspended four games for violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy by smoking marijuana, and two weeks after the suspension was handed down, he was arrested in Missouri for traffic violations and resisting arrest. He was suspended a game in 2016 for the incident, which violated the league’s personal conduct policy.

“Off the field, I let my team down back when I was younger, so I know the ins and outs of it,’’ he said. “You just have to be the same person. Just be yourself and be a great teammate. If you want to consider yourself a brother, then be that. You never sit here and tell your brother, ‘oh you’re right, I’m cutting you off, or bash him in media.’ [Mayfield] didn’t bash [Garrett] or anything like that. They just had a disagreement. It’s okay to disagree, but the media don’t need to know you had a disagreement because they can make a story out of that.’’

A first-round pick of the Jets in 2013, Richardson was taught by his superiors that if you aired team laundry in public, you had to come clean.

“The team addressed you as a teammate, as a brother,” he said. “You had to address that, look us in the face and tell us why you went that route.”

Over the next few days, Mayfield approached Garrett and told him how he felt.

“He wanted me back and he’s said that,’’ Garrett told cleveland.com last summer. “He’s proud to have me on this team and I’m proud to have him as my quarterback on this team.’’

As for what Mayfield said on national television, “we didn’t have to clear the air,’’ Garrett said. “The man had an opinion and I can’t fault him for that. … He’s my teammate and he’s going to have my back regardless. He saw what he saw and he said what he said. But he’s always had my back, and he’s always going to put his best foot forward for me and for the team.’’

Richardson was also instrumental in helping Garrett understand that he needed to engage with his teammates more. His tendency to march to his own drummer was often taken the wrong way by his teammates, and some didn’t perceive him as a leader.

“I said ‘if you want to step up and be the guy, lead by example first,’” Richardson said. “’Guys are drawn to guys who make plays and you do that often, so people are going to gravitate to you anyway. It’s okay to be yourself, bro. It’s okay to like anime, it’s okay to be a philanthropist, it’s okay to express yourself to your teammates if something ain’t going right and you feel a certain type of way.

“I told him that people want you to talk to them. If you don’t talk to them, you come off as you’re too big or you belittle them with just a yay or nay type deal and they’re looking for conversation. Granted, you don’t have to grant people that type of time but these are your teammates and your brothers and you have to be around them, so some type of conversation.’’

Richardson also knew just how to motivate Garrett. Without Richardson around, Garrett had to do it himself last week, lighting a fire under his teammates by challenging them to make plays when he’s double-teamed, and calling a players-only defensive meeting. The result was a nine-sack performance by the Browns against the Bears, including a club-record 4 1/2 by Garrett.

“I definitely knew how to motivate him without motivating him,’’ Richardson said. “He’s a self-motivated guy. A phenomenal talent. A big, strong, athletic guy. He knows how to the get to the quarterback. I just kept it real with him. Every play is not a pass play.’’

Richardson’s intervention brought Mayfield and Garrett — the two No. 1 picks — together and inspired them to step up their leadership.

“I showed them how to be a great teammate, be there for one another, no matter their differences, no matter a guy’s situation,’’ Richardson said. “You never know what they’re going through off the field. All of that comes into play when you’re taking a leadership role. Just gotta make sure those guys stay focused on the task at hand. I think they grasped that pretty good.

“Baker has to be a leader. He’s the quarterback, he’s leading the team, he’s got the team in his hands, and Myles being the high-paid guy dollar guy that he is, and the big-time player he is, it just took him a while to get past the — not a selfish stage — but he was definitely more so just being a dominant player, defensive player of the year, not personal accolades.”

By training camp last summer, Mayfield and Garrett made a pact to lead their respective units as far as they could take them. Garrett was coming off the helmet incident, and Mayfield off a horrible season in which the NFL world wrote him off.

“We’re two young Texas boys who want to lead each side of the ball to success,” Garrett said then. “We’re in the same boat. We’re competitive. We want to be the best we can be. We know that [2019] wasn’t it. We’re going to challenge each other every day.”

This season, Garrett and Mayfield have renewed their leadership pact. Both players are holding their teammates accountable, and have taken it to another level.

Mayfield hosted another Camp Mayfield in Austin, Texas for offensive players.

“Honestly he just welcomes us to his home with open arms and we get our work in in the morning and after that, we chill, hang out, get some food, cookout by the pool or whatever and learn more about each other and it’s kind of great,’’ Kareem Hunt said. “We all get the work in. We know when it’s time to work and get stuff done. It’s a lot of our big-time players, and it’s not Baker. We bond with everybody. You play better for the brother next to you. You play for those guys that you care about.”

Hunt said Mayfield has taken it upon himself to “pull the offense aside and have little meetings together with no coaches and stuff like that and he just talks to us as teammates. It’s like more of a brotherhood.’’

Hunt, who’s gotten to know Garrett well, has seen positive changes in him too.

“I just see him coaching young guys,’’ he said. “He’s not BS’ing or anything. He’s locked in on the game. He’s trying to make everybody better from linebackers to d-linemen and safeties.’’

He’s grateful to have the two stars leading the way.

“Yeah, honestly they’re both the No. 1 overall pick,” Hunt said. “They’ve both been in Cleveland when good things weren’t happening. They’ve both been through bad droughts and both have been through playoff wins. They’ve come a long way and they’ve learned together.’’

Defensive line coach Chris Kiffin has enjoyed witnessing Garrett and Mayfield do whatever it takes to take the team to new heights.

“It’s really cool to watch from my perspective,’’ he said. “To see two young guys like that really take the team onto their shoulders, and understand their responsibility and the expectations that come along with it, watching those two guys, they’ve got the personality for it and they’re both absolute playmakers and it’s fun to watch.’’

On Sunday, Richardson knows he’ll be facing a team that can go all the way.

“I’m thinking the Minnesota Vikings are on the way to a championship, but [the Browns] definitely have the opportunity to do that too,’’ he said. “They have the firepower to do that with a roster before all of the cap casualties. They brought in some good guys on the back end on that defense, brought in some new talent on the d-line, fresh faces, fresh faces at linebacker a little bit. I’m pretty sure those guys are going to be solid, so it’s going to be one dog fight when they come here.’’

Richardson deflects credit to Kevin Stefanski for changing the culture and turning the program around, but he deserves a huge assist for getting the Browns’ two No. 1 picks on the same page before it was too late.