Baker Mayfield: Fire The Cannons

People need to let that missed pass to OBJ go. Literally every single QB misses a wide open guy from time to time. As someone who watches a ton of Red Zone, I see it about two dozen times a weekend at least.

Jack Brickman said:

People need to let that missed pass to OBJ go. Literally every single QB misses a wide open guy from time to time. As someone who watches a ton of Red Zone, I see it about two dozen times a weekend at least.

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And if you are going to harp on that single throw, be sure to mention his critical 3rd down conversions on several occasions. I don't have the stats but I think there were some tough plays he made on 3rd down to keep the sticks moving, especially at the end of the first half.

So don’t criticize a guy for not making a play during crunch time that put a red-hot offense on the field who pulled the game to three points? Never said he played bad the rest of the game or didn’t make plays.

I suppose I’ll resign to never saying anything bad or constructive about lord Mayfield.

Perhaps we’ve watched terrible football and QB play for so long that people are hesitant to criticize or critique a guy when we’re winning games?

The Human Q-Tip said:

Being a run-first offense has a major impact not just on how often we throw, but on what we ask our QB to do/not do. Nothing kills a successful running game more than negative yardage plays -- especially sacks. 5.0 ypc is great....unless you're 2nd and 17 or 3rd and 12 because of a sack on first or second down.

So my guess is that Baker has gotten 2 bits of guidance from the staff: 1) minimize sacks, and 2) don't throw picks. I think that may explain some of his "happy feet", and why he is hesitating on some of his throws. Both of those things go against his natural inclination as more of a "gunslinger" quarterback, and I think it's going to take him a while to get sufficiently comfortable to trust his initial reads and make throws, precisely because he is so intent on avoiding negative plays.

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That is some of it, but in reality he is just a young QB with his 5th head coach in 4 years if you count college. He even transferred in college, so he has allot of offenses in that head and just needs to reset.

So he isn't a 3rd year Mahommes, Jackson is good because of his 4.3 40 speed, not his accuracy or anything, the threat of the run opens things up for him, and I find Watson to be a bit over rated....good, not great.

He compares well to a young Wilson, but obviously not current Wilson, but he has time. We all know he needs to work a bit on completing a bit more passes which will bring his YPA up, and getting the ball down filed a bit more, which would bring his YPA attempt up.

If he was lets say at 68% completion instead of 63% and 7.4 YPA instead of 6.3, no one would have any complaints as 7TD's and 2 turnovers (both picks) is really good in 4 games, the lack of throws and yardage wouldn't matter because we are a top 5 scoring offense, 3-1 and a run first team.

Bob_The_Cat said:

So don’t criticize a guy for not making a play during crunch time that put a red-hot offense on the field who pulled the game to three points? Never said he played bad the rest of the game or didn’t make plays.

I suppose I’ll resign to never saying anything bad or constructive about lord Mayfield.

Perhaps we’ve watched terrible football and QB play for so long that people are hesitant to criticize or critique a guy when we’re winning games?

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Its not that it wasn't a bad play, it was awful, its that every qb….every qb makes 2 or 3 bad plays a game, but the good ones make a dozen or so good ones too.

This is the one play that stands out in the game, but I remember about 4 or 5 good throws on the run for 1st downs, he threw a couple of nice TD throws, ect.

There was even one play where the pocket collapsed, and ran back to almost the Line of Scrimmage and took a .5 yard loss for on of his 2 sacks.

I do see the happy feet, I do see, not throwing down field enough, but the point is he is a young qb and he has shown allot of prmise this year. He had major INT problems in the past, this year he is fixing that. He will continue to grow as a qb, Drew Brees the most accurate QB ever in his 3rd year he started 11 games and threw for 57.6% completion with SD. I know a different offense and a different team, but if Stefanski is the man, then Baker already has his Sean Payton, he just needs to grow and we have seen growth.

Bob_The_Cat said:

So don’t criticize a guy for not making a play during crunch time that put a red-hot offense on the field who pulled the game to three points? Never said he played bad the rest of the game or didn’t make plays.

I suppose I’ll resign to never saying anything bad or constructive about lord Mayfield.

Perhaps we’ve watched terrible football and QB play for so long that people are hesitant to criticize or critique a guy when we’re winning games?

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Of course you can criticize. You weren't wrong in pointing that throw out. All my post was meant to do was to tell people to keep in mind the several really tight throws he made.

SuperSurge said:

And if you are going to harp on that single throw, be sure to mention his critical 3rd down conversions on several occasions. I don't have the stats but I think there were some tough plays he made on 3rd down to keep the sticks moving, especially at the end of the first half.

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mine of the conversions that sticks out was the early 3rd and 6 to Bryant; Mayfield was— I believe — on the run and he hit Bryant right on the sideline on an out route. He had to get rid of it quickly as I recall. Does this sound familiar? That one could have easily been too far out to the point at which Bryant couldn’t get both feet in bounds. not all intermediate throws are easy

Bob_The_Cat said:

So don’t criticize a guy for not making a play during crunch time that put a red-hot offense on the field who pulled the game to three points? Never said he played bad the rest of the game or didn’t make plays.

I suppose I’ll resign to never saying anything bad or constructive about lord Mayfield.

Perhaps we’ve watched terrible football and QB play for so long that people are hesitant to criticize or critique a guy when we’re winning games?

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There's a difference between criticism and using it as reason to believe the Browns should still plan on moving on from him, which some are definitely doing.

I'm of the belief that people locked in to "Baker's no the guy" takes after week 1 and are holding on to that take for dear life with things like "Well he missed an open guy down the sideline so he's definitely not a fqb".

I find it hard to believe you could have polled people before the season and asked them if they'd be arguing in favor of abandoning Baker if these circumstanced had happened, you'd have as many people say yes who seem to be arguing for exactly that now.

Bob_The_Cat said:

So don’t criticize a guy for not making a play during crunch time that put a red-hot offense on the field who pulled the game to three points? Never said he played bad the rest of the game or didn’t make plays.

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Baker can't control the game situation so I'm not sure why that one play would warrant so much more weight. You could similarly point to every time he threw for a first down on a scoring drive and claim it was critically important since they wound up needing every scoring drive to maintain a lead late.

Points count for the same whenever they're scored so it doesn't make much sense to me to claim that there's any single throw that "has" to be made.

There's plenty of valid criticisms regarding Baker, enough so that hyper-focusing on a single missed throw seems non-productive.

Lil Gunslinger has morphed into Lil Game Manager. If this shift forces him to survey all his options, in time he'll learn what throws not to force and it will make him a better QB.

This thread is going in a circle right now. I am telling you guys, he had to be the man in college in an explosive offense with a terrible D. Then he had to be the man as a surprise starter and he set the touchdown mark for a rookie.
then we get last year, the OC wanted to stretch the field, and we all know it was a disaster.
Winning football in Cleveland is different now for him. Minimizing mistakes is crucial, and we will build up more of the playbook over time.

It’s really simple. Just give him 8 games and look back on that body of work. We have only won games against teams who couldnt stop our rushing attack, so we ran them over. Baker can and will have to do better as the season unfolds but how he played the last 2 weeks in particular is winning football.

I'm really interested to see how Baker does these next two weeks. I honestly think they're going to be the two most important games of the season. We're going up against two very strong defenses who, since the Dallas game, have been put on notice by our running game. Especially with Nick Chubb out, these two defenses are gonna go balls to the wall at stacking the box to not let us control the tempo of the game early with run. They're going to force Baker to set the tone and be the one to have to make the key plays down the stretch. Really interested to see if he can do it

Ocelot said:

Baker can't control the game situation so I'm not sure why that one play would warrant so much more weight. You could similarly point to every time he threw for a first down on a scoring drive and claim it was critically important since they wound up needing every scoring drive to maintain a lead late.

Points count for the same whenever they're scored so it doesn't make much sense to me to claim that there's any single throw that "has" to be made.

There's plenty of valid criticisms regarding Baker, enough so that hyper-focusing on a single missed throw seems non-productive.

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Yes. Moments where the game is in the balance and pressure is on carry more weight. Is that not a commonly accepted thing in sports? I thought that was accepted in every sport for a very long time. Converting 1st downs when your up 41-14 is inherently easier than when you’re up 41-30, time is ticking down, your offense has sputtered, and the defense is getting abused.

I mean, if we’re talking basketball, if a guy scores 60 points, has 10 reb, and 12 ast but he misses an open layup to win the game, no one’s goi got talk about the other points he scored.

OBJ made a great play, otherwise it would be getting talked about more. Maybe I’m just an idiot for focusing on what happened when the game started getting tighter vs what happened when there was zero pressure on him?

Bob_The_Cat said:

Yes. Moments where the game is in the balance and pressure is on carry more weight. Is that not a commonly accepted thing in sports? I thought that was accepted in every sport for a very long time. Converting 1st downs when your up 41-14 is inherently easier than when you’re up 41-30, time is ticking down, your offense has sputtered, and the defense is getting abused.

I mean, if we’re talking basketball, if a guy scores 60 points, has 10 reb, and 12 ast but he misses an open layup to win the game, no one’s goi got talk about the other points he scored.

OBJ made a great play, otherwise it would be getting talked about more. Maybe I’m just an idiot for focusing on what happened when the game started getting tighter vs what happened when there was zero pressure on him?

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I think his point is that the 'critical moments' in an NFL game has a wide net. You have a laser focus on one play while the Browns were up 41-30 and momentum was against us. Sure, that's a critical moment, but there are 432098243 other moments we can label the same way.

What about the big conversion to OBJ at the end of the 1st quarter to get us in the red zone while we were down 7-14?

What about the 3rd and 6th conversion to Landry to get us at the goal line while we were down 7-14? Then followed up on the very next play with a TD pass to OBJ? We avoided a field goal and scored on Mayfield throws to tie the game when Dallas had 14 unanswered and momentum.

How about the 3rd and 10 conversion to Landry while we were up 21-14? Rather than kick a field goal (which could be missed), it led to a Kareem Hunt TD on the goal line. Is that not a critical moment, putting the foot down on the neck of the opponent when given the opportunity?

How about all the first down passes before the end of the 1st half that gave us 3 points?

Were those not critical moments? What's the narrative if he misses Landry on those first downs, misses OBJ on some of the first downs he had? Or even worse, throw picks in those situations? "ThEsE aRe CrItIcAl MoMeNtS tO aSsErT cOnTrOl Of ThE gAmE aNd He FaiLed!!!"

Thing is, you're not wrong about wanting to see Mayfield connect with OBJ on that pass. We all do. We want improvement, and Mayfield hasn't convinced anyone that he has done enough so far. You just need to come to accept that passes like that will happen in just about every game and trying to enhance your position by labeling it a 'critical moment' is not doing you any favors.

Bob_The_Cat said:

Converting 1st downs when your up 41-14 is inherently easier than when you’re up 41-30, time is ticking down, your offense has sputtered, and the defense is getting abused.

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Yes, but that's not what happened. The Browns converted 33 first downs in that game - exactly zero were when we were up 41-14, and only one when we were up 41-22. It was during the "no pressure" time when we had a huge lead that we played our worst.

Entering the second quarter, we were down by 7 and playing away from home against a very high scoring team. That's pressure, and we responded by scoring 24 points, with Baker going 10-15 with 2 TD's.