Baker Mayfield: Fire The Cannons

[Vee-Rex]

I honestly don't understand you guys in here stanning for Dak, Matt Ryan, or Matt Stafford.

I'm one of the people most critical of Baker, but he's a better option than either Stafford or Ryan... well, at least has a higher ceiling. If you want to cap this team's potential at "good team that makes the playoffs" instead of a championship contender, then go for it.

Yeah, I get the sense that some feelings have been momentarily quelled but the moment Baker throws another pick, all hell is gonna break loose (even if we win).

 

[Out of the Rafters at the Q]

Yeah, I get the sense that some feelings have been momentarily quelled but the moment Baker throws another pick, all hell is gonna break loose (even if we win).

The kid's gonna throw picks.

You have to treat him like he's a young QB.... because he is. He played half of one season, and wasn't in a position to grow last year.

He's going to misread coverages. He's going to get picked by someone lurking underneath. He's going to get thrown off by a zone blitz where an edge rusher drops back into coverage.

The objective isn't to say he sucks because he made the mistake. The objective should be to see how Stefanski, Van Pelt, and Baker use the experience to grow.

I've seen nothing so far this season to make me believe that this trio isn't going to have success.

I'd have concerns if I saw Baker's footwork go back to old, instead of the new drop Van Pelt had him working on. I'd have concerns if Baker were sparring with the coaching staff in the media. As long as I don't see stupid things like that happening, I think we're in a good spot.

 

[Bob_The_Cat]

Dak isn't good enough to win you a championship after considering the amount of cap room you have to dedicate to him.

I see no reason to move on from Baker.

If you do, it's for someone you draft.

Not sure what’s so hard about this. No one is advocating moving on from Baker at this moment. Simply looking at what could happen if he doesn’t look like the guy the rest of the year.

Also, if you look at recent extensions for Goff, Watson, Wentz, etc, if Baker gets an extension from us it’s going to be around $35+ mill / year. Dak might get more, but no that much more.

 

[Randolphkeys]

I honestly don't understand you guys in here stanning for Dak, Matt Ryan, or Matt Stafford.

I'm one of the people most critical of Baker, but he's a better option than either Stafford or Ryan... well, at least has a higher ceiling. If you want to cap this team's potential at "good team that makes the playoffs" instead of a championship contender, then go for it.

I might argue against the Matt Ryan assessment here. We are talking about a guy who was MVP of the NFL in 2016 and if his defense didn't shit the bed, would have also been Super Bowl MVP. He has proven that with a top-tier playcaller, he can be "the guy."

However, that doesn't mean he can definitely do it better than Baker, we just know he has done it before and Baker has yet to do it.

 

[Out of the Rafters at the Q]

I might argue against the Matt Ryan assessment here. We are talking about a guy who was MVP of the NFL in 2016 and if his defense didn't shit the bed, would have also been Super Bowl MVP. He has proven that with a top-tier playcaller, he can be "the guy."

However, that doesn't mean he can definitely do it better than Baker, we just know he has done it before and Baker has yet to do it.

I think there's a huge discrepancy between Ryan's counting stats and his ability to win games.

The only QB's I'm willing to pay the 35+ million a franchise guy is going to now demand would be:

Rodgers
Russ
Mahomes
Lamar
Watson (questionable, but you gotta do it)

That's it. Obviously there's a weird exception right now for the old guys on short deals. Brady, Brees, Roethlisberger could all be useful at that price for a year or two if your team has the roster to contend. I don't have the data, but everything points to the recipe for success being to either have an elite QB, or keep drafting. As soon as you sell out the cap space that a middle-of-the-road guy like Goff, Dak, Wentz, Cousins, etc. takes up, your team's window closes up fast.

And, if Baker doesn't show that he can be elite by the end of his contract, I'd have no problem realizing that sinking 40 million a year into him is a bad proposition and trying to figure out what makes the most sense for us moving forward.

 

[Vee-Rex]

Not sure what’s so hard about this. No one is advocating moving on from Baker at this moment. Simply looking at what could happen if he doesn’t look like the guy the rest of the year.

Also, if you look at recent extensions for Goff, Watson, Wentz, etc, if Baker gets an extension from us it’s going to be around $35+ mill / year. Dak might get more, but no that much more.

I think this is where there's a disconnect. Are we expecting more from Baker as of right now?

At what point will people realize he's not Mahomes, he's not Wilson, he's not Rodgers. Does that mean he'll only ever be a game manager? No. Russell Wilson was essentially a 'game manager' behind some profilic Seahawks defenses and only recently (last 4 or so years) became the superstar that he is now.

Point is - Baker doesn't have to have crazy numbers. Hell, he's on pace for 28 TDs and 8 INTs, while a HOF like Ben Roethlisberger had 18 TDs and 23 INTs in his 3rd year. Baker just needs to continue to grow. Doesn't mean he won't throw a pick or two next week. But how does it learn from it? There's a reason why teams often view the season in quarters and evaluate performances by those margins.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

I think this is where there's a disconnect. Are we expecting more from Baker as of right now?

At what point will people realize he's not Mahomes, he's not Wilson, he's not Rodgers. Does that mean he'll only ever be a game manager? No. Russell Wilson was essentially a 'game manager' behind some profilic Seahawks defenses and only recently (last 4 or so years) became the superstar that he is now.

Point is - Baker doesn't have to have crazy numbers. Hell, he's on pace for 28 TDs and 8 INTs, while a HOF like Ben Roethlisberger had 18 TDs and 23 INTs in his 3rd year. Baker just needs to continue to grow. Doesn't mean he won't throw a pick or two next week. But how does it learn from it? There's a reason why teams often view the season in quarters and evaluate performances by those margins.

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.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

The kid's gonna throw picks.

You have to treat him like he's a young QB.... because he is. He played half of one season, and wasn't in a position to grow last year.

He's going to misread coverages. He's going to get picked by someone lurking underneath. He's going to get thrown off by a zone blitz where an edge rusher drops back into coverage.

The objective isn't to say he sucks because he made the mistake. The objective should be to see how Stefanski, Van Pelt, and Baker use the experience to grow.

I've seen nothing so far this season to make me believe that this trio isn't going to have success.

I think some of his hesitancy in letting it fly is that it has been drilled into him not to throw picks - especially after the Ravens game. That's a bit of a conundrum, because normally you give a young QB more leeway to throw picks as part of his development. But if he's been told that avoiding negative plays is a priority, I could see him doing double-takes to ensure there's no lurking safety, etc., so as to avoid negative plays. And that's going to make it look like he's processing things more slowly than he actually is.

 

[Lee]

Do any of you realize Baker is 11th in the league QBR? Not saying its the best stat, but still

How about this one, in Russell Wilson's Third season under the same coach and offense he had in his first, he threw for 3400 yards, 63% completion, 20 TD's and 7 ints. Right now Baker is on pace for 2900 Yards, 63% completion, 28 TDS and 8 Ints.

Would most agree Wilson is a top 3 QB right now and the early favorite for the MVP?

Yes he missed a pass to OBJ, but he made some great throws on the run. We have all watched Peyton, Brady and Brees miss passes, the best all do. I keep saying I want him to be around 68% completion, and if he was his YPA would be around 7, I would like to see him at around 7.5 for YPA, but everything else is good. We are running all over people, he isn't being asked to throw the ball a ton, no QB should throw the ball a ton when we are running like that. Brees doesn't throw the ball a ton when there running game is this good.

I wasn't sold on Baker, not 100% sold on him now, but he is doing what is being asked of him. The offense isn't dumbed down imo, its just built to compliment our bad defense right now and control the ball. The methodical end of the first half drive wasn't because of not trusting Baker, its because we didn't trust our defense.

 

[Bob_The_Cat]

I think this is where there's a disconnect. Are we expecting more from Baker as of right now?

At what point will people realize he's not Mahomes, he's not Wilson, he's not Rodgers. Does that mean he'll only ever be a game manager? No. Russell Wilson was essentially a 'game manager' behind some profilic Seahawks defenses and only recently (last 4 or so years) became the superstar that he is now.

Point is - Baker doesn't have to have crazy numbers. Hell, he's on pace for 28 TDs and 8 INTs, while a HOF like Ben Roethlisberger had 18 TDs and 23 INTs in his 3rd year. Baker just needs to continue to grow. Doesn't mean he won't throw a pick or two next week. But how does it learn from it? There's a reason why teams often view the season in quarters and evaluate performances by those margins.

Never said I’m expecting something different of him right now. In fact I don’t even know if I’ve seen other people say much of that. I’m not expecting him to be Mahomes, Wilson, or Rodgers. He’s doesn’t even have the opportunity to be those guys with how we’ve been calling plays and I’m totally fine with that.

My biggest issue from the Dallas game was the 3rd down play where he overthrew a wide open OBJ by about 7 yards out of bounds. Good QBs, even game managers need to be able to make those throws when it matters.

If he's not being asked to do a lot in the passing game, then he at least needs to get his completion percentage up or else we're going wind up stalling out a lot of drives. One of his best attributes coming out of college was his accuracy, so if we don't see that coming up by the end of the year I do think that's cause for concern. I’d say if we’re at the end of the year and he’s still getting happy feet and can’t get his completion percentage over at least 65%, it’s at least worth discussing where we’re at with him. We just need to see progression.

One thing I haven’t seen many people mention; the Browns are currently leading the league in turnovers and the offense has had a lot of short fields because of it. I think this to a degree has inflated his TD number a little bit. If the TOs don’t continue at the same pace, it’ll be interesting to see how that might change play calling a bit as they’ll need to mount more extended drives. I’m not using this as a knock on him or the offense as they’ve capitalized on the opportunities, but I do think it's worth watching.

 

[Vee-Rex]

Never said I’m expecting something different of him right now. In fact I don’t even know if I’ve seen other people say much of that. I’m not expecting him to be Mahomes, Wilson, or Rodgers. He’s doesn’t even have the opportunity to be those guys with how we’ve been calling plays and I’m totally fine with that.

My biggest issue from the Dallas game was the 3rd down play where he overthrew a wide open OBJ by about 7 yards out of bounds. Good QBs, even game managers need to be able to make those throws when it matters.

If he's not being asked to do a lot in the passing game, then he at least needs to get his completion percentage up or else we're going wind up stalling out a lot of drives. One of his best attributes coming out of college was his accuracy, so if we don't see that coming up by the end of the year I do think that's cause for concern. I’d say if we’re at the end of the year and he’s still getting happy feet and can’t get his completion percentage over at least 65%, it’s at least worth discussing where we’re at with him. We just need to see progression.

One thing I haven’t seen many people mention; the Browns are currently leading the league in turnovers and the offense has had a lot of short fields because of it. I think this to a degree has inflated his TD number a little bit. If the TOs don’t continue at the same pace, it’ll be interesting to see how that might change play calling a bit as they’ll need to mount more extended drives. I’m not using this as a knock on him or the offense as they’ve capitalized on the opportunities, but I do think it's worth watching.

I think we're mostly in agreement. It just seems like we could be winning Super Bowls and people would still be unsatisfied unless Baker goes 20/26 300 yards and 3 TDs. As for the laser-hard focus on that one overthrow - I mean sure we want him to connect, but if one overthrow in a game is your biggest issue, why have you mentioned it 4345908 times already? Not picking on you but I truly wonder if people actually watch other QBs. A few bad passes in a game tend to happen all the time.

 

[Bob_The_Cat]

I think we're mostly in agreement. It just seems like we could be winning Super Bowls and people would still be unsatisfied unless Baker goes 20/26 300 yards and 3 TDs. As for the laser-hard focus on that one overthrow - I mean sure we want him to connect, but if one overthrow in a game is your biggest issue, why have you mentioned it 4345908 times already? Not picking on you but I truly wonder if people actually watch other QBs. A few bad passes in a game tend to happen all the time.

I think that particular throw stands out more mainly because of what we've said in this thread. He's just not being asked to do much in the passing game at the moment so when you miss a throw like that, it's kind of amplified. I think if he's completing more passes and converting more 1st downs through the air, not as many people pay attention to it. We're tied for first in rushing 1st downs and 24th in passing 1st downs. That's probably why more people point to it.

 

[Vee-Rex]

I think that particular throw stands out more mainly because of what we've said in this thread. He's just not being asked to do much in the passing game at the moment so when you miss a throw like that, it's kind of amplified. I think if he's completing more passes and converting more 1st downs through the air, not as many people pay attention to it. We're tied for first in rushing 1st downs and 24th in passing 1st downs. That's probably why more people point to it.

I think that number is probably heavily skewed from week 1. Also, we don't pass as much as most teams so that number doesn't really tell me much.


Baker IS converting first downs quite often. He's doing exactly what we ask him to do. He's throwing the ball away rather than force passes into coverage or take sacks, yet people get upset. And then they ignore the 1st downs just to zero in on a couple bad passes throughout the game.

He's a work in progress but he truly is playing well and limiting big mistakes which is what we need in this offense right now. Maybe he can throw for 350 yards but it's likely to come with 2 costly interceptions that cause us to lose - we can't afford that type of play right now. Hopefully he gets more comfortable with time and able to make those big plays more consistently as he grows. He's still a young QB.

 

[Lee]

I think that number is probably heavily skewed from week 1. Also, we don't pass as much as most teams so that number doesn't really tell me much.


Baker IS converting first downs quite often. He's doing exactly what we ask him to do. He's throwing the ball away rather than force passes into coverage or take sacks, yet people get upset. And then they ignore the 1st downs just to zero in on a couple bad passes throughout the game.

He's a work in progress but he truly is playing well and limiting big mistakes which is what we need in this offense right now. Maybe he can throw for 350 yards but it's likely to come with 2 costly interceptions that cause us to lose - we can't afford that type of play right now. Hopefully he gets more comfortable with time and able to make those big plays more consistently as he grows. He's still a young QB.

So i looked it up because i thought it was a bullshit stat, league average is a bit over 60%, Baker is about 75% over that period. SO yeah, decently significant, color me surprised , lol

 

[Bob_The_Cat]

I think that number is probably heavily skewed from week 1. Also, we don't pass as much as most teams so that number doesn't really tell me much.


Baker IS converting first downs quite often. He's doing exactly what we ask him to do. He's throwing the ball away rather than force passes into coverage or take sacks, yet people get upset. And then they ignore the 1st downs just to zero in on a couple bad passes throughout the game.

He's a work in progress but he truly is playing well and limiting big mistakes which is what we need in this offense right now. Maybe he can throw for 350 yards but it's likely to come with 2 costly interceptions that cause us to lose - we can't afford that type of play right now. Hopefully he gets more comfortable with time and able to make those big plays more consistently as he grows. He's still a young QB.

Again, in genteral I don’t have much issue with what he’s done. Not sure how many times I have to say it. When you only complete 19 passes in a game and you sail one over the head of a wide open receiver in a crucial situation, of course people are going to remember it. That’s it. Otherwise he’s played well for what he’s been asked to do. Never said anything about the lower number of passing 1sts being a problem, just that’s probably why those types of throws stand out more in people’s minds. When you throw 50+ times a game and convert 29 1st downs through the air, it’s not as easy to remember a single missed throw on 3rd down.

Had to go back and look at the play-by-play to make sure I had this right. This is why people think of that throw so much. Browns were up 41-14 then started hemorrhaging points. Dallas had just scored on a quick TD to make it 41-30. Baker misses that throw on 3rd down with 6:15 left. Browns go 3-and-out and the Cowboys go 80 yards in 2:00 min to make it 41-38.

A good throw to OBJ and he potentially scores and puts the game away. At minimum he gets 15-20 yards and they burn another two minutes or more off the clock and buy the D some time. The game situation is why people point to it, and had it not been for OBJ’s run saving the day, probably even more people would point to that throw.