After four seasons as the Cleveland Browns’ starting quarterback, Baker Mayfield is on the move. The Browns made the controversial decision to trade for former Houston Texans quarterback, Deshaun Watson, making Mayfield’s position with the team redundant. A fresh start is necessary for Mayfield, but he must perform wherever he goes.
Mayfield’s first four seasons in the NFL have been tough to evaluate. His 2021 season was derailed by a torn labrum in his non-throwing shoulder which he continued to play through until the final week of the year. That shoulder injury severely affected Mayfield’s play as he finished 21st out of 31 quarterbacks in EPA, while completing just 60 percent of his passes for 3010 yards, 17 touchdowns and 13 interceptions.
The first two games of the 2021 campaign looked promising for Mayfield, and it was the continuation of a strong second half of the season in 2020. He had the third-best PFF passing grade in the NFL in the second half of 2020, throwing 11 touchdowns and 1 interception while completing 62 percent of his passes. It looked like the stepping stone necessary to get Mayfield an extension prior to this season, but the Browns decided to hold on to their money and look elsewhere less than a year later.
Cleveland was hesitant to put Mayfield in a tough situation. He was guaranteed his fifth-year option but the struggles this past season could have been enough justification for the Browns to not give him a big new extension and see how his fifth year played out.
Instead, the Browns pulled a complete 180 by trading for Watson in a very public manner. That led to Mayfield putting out a message thanking the fans and admitting that he didn’t know what the future held. You can love him or hate him for it, but Mayfield always wears his heart on his sleeve.
But those sentimentalities won’t be enough at his next stop. Mayfield will be working under his fifth head coach and fourth offensive coordinator in five years. That’s a lot of different systems, asking him to play the game just a little bit differently than the previous regimes. That’s a level of discomfort that not many players are, thankfully, privy too. One could, and probably should, argue that that makes it hard to get a real read on a quarterback – or any player for that matter put in that situation.
The fact is, the Browns traded for a quarterback because they felt Mayfield wasn’t the guy to get them over the hump. And now he must repair his standing in the league in the most pivotal year of his young career. Mayfield is a free agent after the 2022 NFL season. Any team that trades for him will take on his $18.85 million salary for a year before deciding whether or not to extend him and declare him their franchise quarterback. Mayfield will have no choice but to let his play do the talking.
It’s critical that the Mayfield roller coaster starts to ascend. The potential landing spots aren’t ideal. The Seattle Seahawks are the presumptive favourites based on the fact they’re starting quarterback is currently Drew Lock, despite operating like a team who still wants to compete. But there are dark horse choices like the Detroit Lions or the Carolina Panthers, who desperately need to move on from Sam Darnold but might not be so keen on rolling the dice on another quarterback from the 2018 draft.
There’s even the possibility that Mayfield remains on the roster as the Browns prepare for an inevitable suspension heading Watson’s way. It’s an unlikely scenario, but all three of Carolina, Seattle, and Detroit have the opportunity to take a quarterback in the first round this year. How that could affect their evaluation of Mayfield is anyone’s guess, though it’s fair to assume it probably dampens his market just a tad.
Regardless of setting and scenario, Mayfield has the odds stacked against him. The most recent version of Mayfield is one that struggled with mental lapses and vision across the field, as well as poor footwork that led to accuracy issues. As we’ve seen, they’re also fixable elements, but a front office also has to convince themselves they can cure the ailments.
Mayfield isn’t a broken prospect without any hope of redemption, but he also needs to convince the rest of the NFL – or at least one team – that that’s the case. No quarterback will have more to prove than Mayfield in 2022. He has to perform wherever he goes, or the road to redemption gets that much tougher when he’s looking for a contract in 2023. Mayfield could find a team tomorrow, ball out, and get a new extension before it ever gets to that stage, but nothing is ever a given in the NFL.
-Thomas Valentine
Twitter: @ThomasValenfine