Baker Mayfield: Fire The Cannons

The Oi said:

What kind of trades are people running right now with Baker that are making sense?

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To the Packers: Baker Mayfield
To the Browns: Aaron Rodgers

To the Texans:. Baker Mayfield
To the Browns: DeShaun Watson

To the Bears: Baker Mayfield
To the Browns: Justin Fields

The first one prevents him from ending up on the Steelers. The second brings back one of the top 5 qbs in the game; just keep him away from the local massage parlors. The last is a play for the future, getting us a QB from a true college powerhouse and offense, one that should 'get us.'

This is going to sound strange, but if you’re a Baker fan and believe in him as a guy to build around going forward, then you actually need to believe his injury is having a significant impact on his play.

Either the shoulder brace is negatively impacting his accuracy or he’s skittish about taking a hit on a painful shoulder so his entire process has been sped up for two straight games which is killing his mechanics and ultimately his accuracy.

Because if he’s having these types of issues without some other factor either directly causing it or significantly impacting it, that’s a much bigger problem moving forward than I think any of us want to admit.

I mean this when I say it. I think 2-53 the Browns have the best team in football. I think combine that with coaching and it’s not even close. This roster is very good and Stefanski knows how to push the buttons correctly.

Mayfield is the main question mark. He doesn’t have to play like Mahomes or Rodgers for the Browns to contend for the Super Bowl, but he can’t play like a stiff either.

CBBI said:

This is going to sound strange, but if you’re a Baker fan and believe in him as a guy to build around going forward, then you actually need to believe his injury is having a significant impact on his play.

Either the shoulder brace is negatively impacting his accuracy or he’s skittish about taking a hit on a painful shoulder so his entire process has been sped up for two straight games which is killing his mechanics and ultimately his accuracy.

Because if he’s having these types of issues without some other factor either directly causing it or significantly impacting it, that’s a much bigger problem moving forward than I think any of us want to admit.

I mean this when I say it. I think 2-53 the Browns have the best team in football. I think combine that with coaching and it’s not even close. This roster is very good and Stefanski knows how to push the buttons correctly.

Mayfield is the main question mark. He doesn’t have to play like Mahomes or Rodgers for the Browns to contend for the Super Bowl, but he can’t play like a stiff either.

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I think the sample size is large enough for Baker to believe he’s a good, not great QB.

Top 12 guy, 15 at worst. Game manager for the Browns, high volume passer for a bad team. I think we’ve seen his best at this point, which is multiple Super Bowl win (get the first one first) quality given the talent, coaching and FO around him. Doesn’t mean he’ll win multiple SB’s. Just means he’s good enough to IMO.

I believe the mistakes he’s making are out of character and are a result of one or both of the things you described.

The concern would be whether this is an injury that gets worse and his play continues to get worse with it. If so he’s going to end up benched.

CBBI said:

This is going to sound strange, but if you’re a Baker fan and believe in him as a guy to build around going forward, then you actually need to believe his injury is having a significant impact on his play.

Either the shoulder brace is negatively impacting his accuracy or he’s skittish about taking a hit on a painful shoulder so his entire process has been sped up for two straight games which is killing his mechanics and ultimately his accuracy.

Because if he’s having these types of issues without some other factor either directly causing it or significantly impacting it, that’s a much bigger problem moving forward than I think any of us want to admit.

I mean this when I say it. I think 2-53 the Browns have the best team in football. I think combine that with coaching and it’s not even close. This roster is very good and Stefanski knows how to push the buttons correctly.

Mayfield is the main question mark. He doesn’t have to play like Mahomes or Rodgers for the Browns to contend for the Super Bowl, but he can’t play like a stiff either.

Click to expand...

That’s what I believe: shoulder-related. And yes, the Browns have an incredible roster. JOK might be one of the best LBs in the NFL as a rookie! Scorching hot take! Browns have 2 wins in a row from our defense, and of course this one was on the road. Any road victory is huge in the NFL.

If Greedy *and* Delpit are legit NFL players, we are such a squad.

Browns Bills AFC champ sounds fun.

CBBI said:

This is going to sound strange, but if you’re a Baker fan and believe in him as a guy to build around going forward, then you actually need to believe his injury is having a significant impact on his play.

Either the shoulder brace is negatively impacting his accuracy or he’s skittish about taking a hit on a painful shoulder so his entire process has been sped up for two straight games which is killing his mechanics and ultimately his accuracy.

Because if he’s having these types of issues without some other factor either directly causing it or significantly impacting it, that’s a much bigger problem moving forward than I think any of us want to admit.

I mean this when I say it. I think 2-53 the Browns have the best team in football. I think combine that with coaching and it’s not even close. This roster is very good and Stefanski knows how to push the buttons correctly.

Mayfield is the main question mark. He doesn’t have to play like Mahomes or Rodgers for the Browns to contend for the Super Bowl, but he can’t play like a stiff either.

Click to expand...

Or, you know... maybe he just had a bad game? I thought he was fine weeks 1 and 2.

While the Bears game wasn't ~great~, it certainly wasn't terrible either. His only truly awful game this year was against the Vikings. One bad game, and we're talking about Keenum + trades for other QBs.

Vee-Rex said:

Or, you know... maybe he just had a bad game? I thought he was fine weeks 1 and 2.

While the Bears game wasn't ~great~, it certainly wasn't terrible either. His only truly awful game this year was against the Vikings. One bad game, and we're talking about Keenum + trades for other QBs.

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I think most of the trade for other QBs are satire. I mean one of them had Justin Fields on the list

The Wizard of Moz said:

I think most of the trade for other QBs are satire. I mean one of them had Justin Fields on the list

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I'd say that strange, quasi-joking but halfway serious about wanting to move on from Baker. Like how my wife "jokes" but there's some truth in it lol.

I think we just need to relax. It needs to be a bigger sample size. In the very least let's see how he looks when Jarvis returns.

What if OBJ is part of it?

For those unfamiliar, CPOE is completion percentage over expectation.

No more excuses for this dude

Jesus people he had 1 bad game. I’m sure the shoulder brace and injury has had somewhat of an impact on his mechanics/accuracy. The first 2 games baker was lights out. Mechanics were good accuracy was great. Basically what we saw the end of last year. The thing with baker is when he has a shit game usually the next game he plays very well. So we will see this week what happens

A lot of generalities thrown out like "Aaron Rodgers has bad games too"....which is more of a half truth to me in the context of Baker.

Baker Mayfield under Stefanski (year 3 + as starter, 22 game sample):
7 QBR games above pro bowl average
7 QBR games above league average to pro bowl
8 QBR games under league average

Aaron Rodgers (year 3 + as starter, 22 game sample):
14 QBR games above pro bowl average
3 QBR games above league average to pro bowl
5 QBR games under league average

That is the more alarming thing to me. Baker is in an absolute IDEAL situation both system and personnel wise and he just does not play at a high level often enough IMO. More than 1/3 of the time, he is playing below league average, including 2 of his last 4 games this season. He's only reached a "pro bowl" QBR level 1 time in his last 7 games.

There are just a lot of trend lines for him that aren't great and there seems to be a good amount of our fanbase that thinks he's fine, which is strange to me. I'm not here to say get rid of him now but that seems like a very realistic conversation at years end, relative to where we stand today. We are at a 22 game sample size, one where we have gone 15-7 (.680) and we might be something like a 19 to 20 win team over that stretch if we just have better QB play. The pieces are there to win a super bowl and our QB is holding us back at this point IMO. He has a chance to play his way out of that but if nothing changes, I don't understand how you don't explore something at years end. Not going for a hot take here, there is just a lot of bad data starting to simmer on him, in a year that seems more make or break to me.

Definitely something to watch going forward. Concerned but not overly so. Talk to me in a few weeks.

What does this even mean? Should’ve communicated the “type of ball” he wanted to throw? Does he not have the capability to adjust to a wide open receiver and throw it in stride (vs. a predetermined location that was TOWARD the defender)?