• Changing RCF's index page, please click on "Forums" to access the forums.

Baker Mayfield: Fire The Cannons

Do Not Sell My Personal Information
There is a difference between deliberate bullying of a particular person, and someone using the word "midget."

That being said, Grossi sucks so I don't care.

The fact that he wasn't already suspended or fired for taking a text message from a number he didn't know and reporting it as a rumor from multiple sources is the truly baffling thing. He shouldn't have even been on air to shoot himself in the foot in the first place.
 

Article from a Jets writer. TLDR: Mayfield has a pretty darn unlucky year and played better than the stats show. Year 2 looks much more like an anomaly than year 1 + college.
 

Article from a Jets writer. TLDR: Mayfield has a pretty darn unlucky year and played better than the stats show. Year 2 looks much more like an anomaly than year 1 + college.

The M abbreviation is great to hear.

If he's really motivated by slights as everyone says, #6 should be absolutely furious that he is generally excluded from Mahones/Lamar discussions.

Although, wake me up when Lamar has a head-to-head winning record against Baker, or has more playoff wins. Unfortunately, I realize there is a good chance that both finally happen this coming season - I'm counting his few snaps in the first '18 matchup.

I still preferred Russ over Lamar for this past year, although I understand that the MVP race was basically decided by their head-to-head matchup.
 
The M abbreviation is great to hear.

If he's really motivated by slights as everyone says, #6 should be absolutely furious that he is generally excluded from Mahones/Lamar discussions.

Although, wake me up when Lamar has a head-to-head winning record against Baker, or has more playoff wins. Unfortunately, I realize there is a good chance that both finally happen this coming season - I'm counting his few snaps in the first '18 matchup.

I still preferred Russ over Lamar for this past year, although I understand that the MVP race was basically decided by their head-to-head matchup.

I dont think there is any doubt mayfield changes some things headed into next year and has a much better year. Not only was he extremely unlucky he was also clearly behind handicap by his head coach. that said he still should have been better. My hope is that with a new tackle and a head coach willing to worth to his and the teams strengths the browns kick ass .

As for Lamar. Well i think he is done as a starter in 5 years (or less) because of injury and last year will always be that random shining moment. But maybe im wrong, and maybe he defies everything else that has stood as important about the QB position in the NFL
 
When the Browns were essentially down to Darnold and Mayfield, and I was VERY anti-Mayfield, this is exactly what I was referring to:

“I really didn’t understand how to read defenses until halfway through like, last year,” Mahomes said, referring to 2018. “I understood coverages, but how to be able to pick up little tendencies defenses do, stuff that [Tom] Brady and them have done, stuff that they know it and they just do it. I was just playing.

“And then this year, I could actually recognize more and more stuff. And I think the more experience and the more I learn, then I’ll be able to go out there and call plays and do that different stuff because I’ve seen it. I still think there’s a long way for me to go there, and that’s where mentally, I think I can still get better.

“Physically, I feel like I’ve done a lot of stuff, I always work on the fundamentals. But mentally, I can still take my game to a whole ’nother level.”

And that’s Patrick Mahomes saying this. When you are in college playing for Kliff Kingsbury, and then get drafted to the Chiefs playing for Andy Reid, you simply aren’t asked to make a lot of reads. The plays are developed for the ball to go to a specific read, and if that read is taken away, improvisation is then allowed.

In college Mayfield had probably the best playcaller in country, but nearly identical to Mahomes, was not asked to read defenses. The biggest difference IMO, beyond Mahomes having Andy Reid while Mayfield has had Hue and Freddy (and I understand that is a MASSIVE difference) is Mahomes is so far physically superior (size, strength, speed) that if an option is taken away, he’s been able to improvise at NFL level.

Mayfield could get away with a lot at the college level for multiple reasons. Primarily he had the best offensive line in the country his senior season. But secondarily, he was in much better shape and more agile. And lastly, it’s college compared to pros where DT’s are athletic enough to chase him down.

Anyways, we’ve seen Baker have some success in rookie season when Kitchens was dialing up a lot more misdirection, which I feel was the biggest missing component of last season. Really questioned the lack of creativity last year, especially when just a season before we saw unique sets and plays drawn up for Landry primarily....and those plays set up all sorts of deep shots and moved the secondaries eyes...but I digress.

I don’t see Mayfield being successful as an NFL QB if he’s asked to essentially be a Kirk Cousins. And that’s kind of my fear going into next season. I feel like Stefanski should incorporate his zone run game, and play action off that is great, but if they’re going to ask Mayfield to check through progressions, I think it’s going to be painful again. He needs to know where he’s going with ball pre-snap and it’s on the playcaller/system to make those plays work.
 
I don’t see Mayfield being successful as an NFL QB if he’s asked to essentially be a Kirk Cousins. And that’s kind of my fear going into next season. I feel like Stefanski should incorporate his zone run game, and play action off that is great, but if they’re going to ask Mayfield to check through progressions, I think it’s going to be painful again. He needs to know where he’s going with ball pre-snap and it’s on the playcaller/system to make those plays work.

I’m over simplifying this significantly, but one of the appealing points about Stefanski’s variation of the wide zone scheme is that it is QB friendly (in theory) and should actually help Mayfield a lot by giving him a lot more easy read/one read throws.

1. Stefanski called a huge amount of play action last year (5th most PA in the NFL) with Minnesota which statistically is proven to help the passing game even if a team isn’t effective running the ball. Mayfield, despite having a really tough year overall, I believe had the widest gap in the entire NFL among starting QBs in effectiveness with play action versus effectiveness without play action. He was solid statistically off play action and basically terrible without it.

2. More effective personnel groupings will help as well. Mayfield statistically was much more effective passing out of bigger personnel groups. Yet somehow Kitchens seemingly didn’t understand or was unwilling to adjust to this easily available information as the Browns passed out of 11 personnel 65% of the time. The Vikings leaned much more heavily on bigger formations and were one of the best passing out of said formations.

Passing Game
Browns in 11 personnel (65%): 73.2 QB rating, 7.0 YPA
Browns in 12 personnel (19%): 96.2 QB rating, 9.3 YPA
Browns in 21 personnel (6%): 87.1 QB rating, 6.4 YPA

Vikings in 11 personnel (18%): 79.9 QB rating, 7.2 YPA
Vikings in 12 personnel (46%): 101.3 QB rating, 7.4 YPA
Vikings in 21 personnel (23%): 112.3 QB rating, 8.8 YPA

Seems obvious, but coaches need to play to their player's (specifically their quarterback) strengths as much as they can. Stefanski did that last year in Minnesota. Kitchens did not do that at all in Cleveland.

3. The wide zone scheme often eliminates half the field right off the bat, which admittedly can be bad if the defense is really great (see Vikings-49ers playoff game), but is usually good against a non super elite defense. Again this is a big simplification, but if the Browns run play action off of a stretch play run look to the right, the entire left side of the field has essentially been eliminated from a progression standpoint unless they’re rolling back the opposite direction. But in either scenario, the moment Mayfield hits the play fake (assuming everything was blocked correctly) Mayfield will have an easy pitch and catch type throw to an open player at best or a 1 on 1 throw to a player capable of beating a defender at worst.

4. Not saying Mayfield and Cousins are anything alike mentality wise, because they aren’t really. But one of Cousins’ big criticisms is that he is actually very unwilling to stand in the pocket and go through progressions down the field. No QB likes to get sacked obviously, but Cousins more than any other quarterback in football has shown a desire to get the ball out of his hands quickly via dumping it off to his check down option. And this safe, risk free style has really worked for him! His completion percentage is routinely very high and his turnover rate is routinely very low. The problem is when defenses really key in on the wide zone stuff and the play action doesn’t work. Cousins doesn’t have the movement skills or the improvisation skills to make things happen when his initial read is taken away and teams key in on his check downs.

Optimistically speaking, I see Mayfield in 2020 hopefully being able to do a better and more souped up version of what Cousins and Garappolo did this year. Right off the bat Baker should be able to take advantage of all the “easier” throws that should be schemed open off the wide zone base.

Where it gets interesting and exciting is how many layers Stefanski and Van Pelt can bake in to the scheme in the form of moving pockets, rollouts and designed throws on the run on top of the play action stuff. Beyond that, we all know Mayfield can do some positive things from an improvised and scramble drill scenario (the problem was Baker tried to do way too much of this last year and ideally it should be a if all else fails play, not a main passing strategy) that other QBs can’t do.

TL/DR - I don’t expect Mayfield to be tasked with making tons and tons of progressions in the passing game. Cousins didn’t last year.
 
Last edited:

Apparently, standard for Heisman winners there.

Unfortunately, even Sam Glassford and Jason White got them.
 
Look, Mayfield is going to be fine. There was a lot of dysfunction on the team and with the offense. The expectations were unrealistic and the two issues combined to lead to a fall back in production. This will be a big year to show he's moving forward and can deal with those issues. Hopefully the organization will make it easier by lowering the dysfunction.
 
Look, Mayfield is going to be fine. There was a lot of dysfunction on the team and with the offense. The expectations were unrealistic and the two issues combined to lead to a fall back in production. This will be a big year to show he's moving forward and can deal with those issues. Hopefully the organization will make it easier by lowering the dysfunction.
I agree.

I also admit that there is more cause for concern about Mayfield's ability to be a franchise QB for a Super Bowl winning franchise now than there was at this point a year ago.
 
I agree.

I also admit that there is more cause for concern about Mayfield's ability to be a franchise QB for a Super Bowl winning franchise now than there was at this point a year ago.
Sure.
BUT really that much? Can we say the 2019 Browns resembled a "Super Bowl winning franchise"?
I mean if you put ANY other QB on this team were the winning a Super Bowl? Making the playoffs?
I GUESS you could say Tom Brady for the sheer force of his leadership maybe made them less disfunctional (maybe).
But that's 42 year old Tom Brady. Brady in 2001? I don't think so.

I'm not saying Mayfield is going to be anything like Brady.
My point is it's hard to draw conclusions as to what a guy (Mayfield) would do on a good team with good chemistry and leadership (coaching/front office) based on what he did when he didn't have that.

At this point he's at least a good NFL QB. Can he elevate a team? I think we need much more sample size to determine that. But I think you shouldn't downgrade him NOW based off unrealistic expectations coming out of his rookie year.
 
Sure.
BUT really that much? Can we say the 2019 Browns resembled a "Super Bowl winning franchise"?
I mean if you put ANY other QB on this team were the winning a Super Bowl? Making the playoffs?
I GUESS you could say Tom Brady for the sheer force of his leadership maybe made them less disfunctional (maybe).
But that's 42 year old Tom Brady. Brady in 2001? I don't think so.

I'm not saying Mayfield is going to be anything like Brady.
My point is it's hard to draw conclusions as to what a guy (Mayfield) would do on a good team with good chemistry and leadership (coaching/front office) based on what he did when he didn't have that.

At this point he's at least a good NFL QB. Can he elevate a team? I think we need much more sample size to determine that. But I think you shouldn't downgrade him NOW based off unrealistic expectations coming out of his rookie year.
I'm saying we're building something from the ground-up. We hit rock bottom.

Is there any reason to have a goal that isn't winning multiple championships?
 
I'm saying we're building something from the ground-up. We hit rock bottom.

Is there any reason to have a goal that isn't winning multiple championships?
Absolutely not. But Mayfield wasn't here when we hit rock bottom. And we need to see where he can take us before we make any determination there. I wasn't a fan of the pick. But he's impressed me. Growing to do. But what second year player doesn't?
 
I'm saying we're building something from the ground-up. We hit rock bottom.

Is there any reason to have a goal that isn't winning multiple championships?
Absolutely not. But Mayfield wasn't here when we hit rock bottom. And we need to see where he can take us before we make any determination there. I wasn't a fan of the pick. But he's impressed me. Growing to do. But what second year player doesn't?
Well, there's the rock bottom of 1-31, and then there's the lesser rock bottom of drastically underachieving this past year.

Again, I think one the reasons we all expected a lot, second-year QB or not, is that Pig Pen, Wilson, and Brady all won titles in their second year.

People are also calling this past season Mahomes' "second year," i.e. as a starter, but that is a big of a misnomer.

But all of the above had pretty exceptional circumstances in their favor.

As it stands right now, Baker has the same number of playoff wins as "vastly superior" Lamar Jackson, and a 2-2 head-to-head record against him; he also has 1 less playoff win than Mahomes had through his "true second year."
 
Well, there's the rock bottom of 1-31, and then there's the lesser rock bottom of drastically underachieving this past year.

Again, I think one the reasons we all expected a lot, second-year QB or not, is that Pig Pen, Wilson, and Brady all won titles in their second year.

People are also calling this past season Mahomes' "second year," i.e. as a starter, but that is a big of a misnomer.

But all of the above had pretty exceptional circumstances in their favor.

As it stands right now, Baker has the same number of playoff wins as "vastly superior" Lamar Jackson, and a 2-2 head-to-head record against him; he also has 1 less playoff win than Mahomes had through his "true second year."

I think we were a bit overhyped AND I blame falling short more on the overall dysfunction than Mayfield. There just has to be SOME sort of stability for him or anyone to succeed or be judged. None of those guys you mentioned turned dysfunction into greatness. They fell into fantastic situations and blossomed.
 

Rubber Rim Job Podcast Video

Episode 3-13: "Backup Bash Brothers"

Rubber Rim Job Podcast Spotify

Episode 3:11: "Clipping Bucks."
Top