Baker Mayfield: Fire The Cannons

[Kbiz]

Matt Ryan isn't having a great year. A lot of his stats are coming in garbage time, he's missing open guys and historically, Ryan plays much better in a dome than on the road. Not a trajectory I like for potential playoff clinching games in November and December on the lake.

Let Baker ride out the year and evaluate at the end of the season. We are 4-1 and talking about benching our leader on offense?

 

[Jack Brickman]

You need to get off of this elite QB mindset. Elite QB's are never available. This idea that you can easily move on from Baker and just plug in a guy who's elite is quite laughable. The whole idea in moving on from baker is to find a QB who is better. It doesn't have to be a young stud who you can plug in for the next 15 years. If the best you can do is Matt Ryan or matt Stafford then that probably means it's not easy to find really good QB's.

If you actually go back and read your reasoning for sticking with Baker you are actually making a good argument for moving on from him. You can sit on your hands and be scared about the cap or trade assets but the good teams know how to find a way to make it work without chopping themselves up. You can complain about Matt Ryan being mediocre but what exactly are you expecting to find when you move on from your QB? You aren't going to just have a Hall of fame QB fall into you lap or a top 10 guy. That's the whole reason why guys aren't available in the first place.

For the record I'm not writing Baker off right now. I'm just saying that there are some better options who are available and who will be available at the end of this season and if Baker continues trending the way that he is then we shouldn't waste anymore time trying to figure out if he's the guy. Go get another dude in here.

The problem is that you're not taking money into account. Baker is making virtually nothing by starting QB standards. Ryan is a 30-40 million cap hit that hamstrings the team's ability to build around him. He's making elite QB money but he's not elite, and that fucking matters.

 

[Los216]

So 7 games is all you give a quarterback in a new system? With no offseason? That's a tough scale.

Only if you think learning this system is the reason why Baker looks the way he looks. So are we saying whenever Baker struggles it's the system? He's still making a lot of the same mistakes. Some of his flaws can be corrected by being in the right system but what happens when he's doing shit that the system can't fix?

 

[Marcus]

At what point is Baker just doing what he's asked to do not enough then? When do the training wheels come off? I get it that it's a new system but that excuse has about 2 more weeks left before it's run it's course. It feels like people are dangerously toeing the line. We're getting very close to people excusing everything he does as learning or growth when in reality he just might not be the guy.

I want him to be that dude but he needs to really show it. Not just do the bare minimum that's asked. He needs to show that he can g out there and be the reason why we are winning games. If he can't do that then how can we trust him to be the guy going forward?

We're five weeks into a new season with a massively truncated offseason, including a complete absence of a preseason.

What exactly were you expecting from a third year QB under his fourth head coach in his third different offensive system?

 

[Marcus]

Only if you think learning this system is the reason why Baker looks the way he looks. So are we saying whenever Baker struggles it's the system? He's still making a lot of the same mistakes. Some of his flaws can be corrected by being in the right system but what happens when he's doing shit that the system can't fix?

What is he doing that isn't correctable by coaching?

 

[Surge]

Only if you think learning this system is the reason why Baker looks the way he looks. So are we saying whenever Baker struggles it's the system? He's still making a lot of the same mistakes. Some of his flaws can be corrected by being in the right system but what happens when he's doing shit that the system can't fix?

I said earlier I trust Stefanski. Baker probably gets this season to show he can get better between game 1 and game 16. I'd imagine if the coaches don't see what they're looking for we will explore our options in the offseason.

 

[Los216]

The problem is that you're not taking money into account. Baker is making virtually nothing by starting QB standards. Ryan is a 30-40 million cap hit that hamstrings the team's ability to build around him. He's making elite QB money but he's not elite, and that fucking matters.

Yeah the QB money argument is one year away from the same talking points we hear repeated with NBA contracts. People need to start understanding fast that the QB market is just different now. The same way you see guys getting max deals in the NBA who people don't think are worth it is happening right now with QB's. baker is one year away from being a $30M year QB. Even if he stays the exact same he is right now his franchise tag number will be $30M at least so the arguments about QB money are quickly becoming moot.

 

[CBBI]

What is he doing that isn't correctable by coaching?

It really depends on if you believe anticipation can be coached up or if it's natural.

 

[Marcus]

Yeah the QB money argument is one year away from the same talking points we hear repeated with NBA contracts. People need to start understanding fast that the QB market is just different now. The same way you see guys getting max deals in the NBA who people don't think are worth it is happening right now with QB's. baker is one year away from being a $30M year QB. Even if he stays the exact same he is right now his franchise tag number will be $30M at least so the arguments about QB money are quickly becoming moot.

So you'd rather give the exact same money to a QB that is 10 years his senior so that the Browns have to go and draft and develop a replacement within a few years anyways?

 

[Los216]

Matt Ryan isn't having a great year. A lot of his stats are coming in garbage time, he's missing open guys and historically, Ryan plays much better in a dome than on the road. Not a trajectory I like for potential playoff clinching games in November and December on the lake.

Let Baker ride out the year and evaluate at the end of the season. We are 4-1 and talking about benching our leader on offense?

No I'm talking about going forward after this season. One of two things are going to happen here. Baker is going to make a massive leap and dead all these conversations or he's going to continue to be meh. If he's still meh at the end of this season then we should move on quickly and stop wasting time. That's my stance. I'm not saying trade for a dude today and bench Baker. I'm saying we shouldn't waste anytime this offseason if Baker is still meh.

 

[Marcus]

It really depends on if you believe anticipation can be coached up or if it's natural.

That's fair, and I think that despite the fact he's still playing behind a much improved offensive line, he is still a little bit skittish. Only time will tell on that one.

 

[Los216]

We're five weeks into a new season with a massively truncated offseason, including a complete absence of a preseason.

What exactly were you expecting from a third year QB under his fourth head coach in his third different offensive system?

I was expecting growth. I don't know if I'm actually seeing that though. I'm not going to let our record sway me either. I'm specifically talking about Baker and his play. QB wins isn't a stat.

 

[Out of the Rafters at the Q]

You need to get off of this elite QB mindset. Elite QB's are never available. This idea that you can easily move on from Baker and just plug in a guy who's elite is quite laughable. The whole idea in moving on from baker is to find a QB who is better. It doesn't have to be a young stud who you can plug in for the next 15 years. If the best you can do is Matt Ryan or matt Stafford then that probably means it's not easy to find really good QB's.

If you actually go back and read your reasoning for sticking with Baker you are actually making a good argument for moving on from him. You can sit on your hands and be scared about the cap or trade assets but the good teams know how to find a way to make it work without chopping themselves up. You can complain about Matt Ryan being mediocre but what exactly are you expecting to find when you move on from your QB? You aren't going to just have a Hall of fame QB fall into you lap or a top 10 guy. That's the whole reason why guys aren't available in the first place.

For the record I'm not writing Baker off right now. I'm just saying that there are some better options who are available and who will be available at the end of this season and if Baker continues trending the way that he is then we shouldn't waste anymore time trying to figure out if he's the guy. Go get another dude in here.

Dude, you need to get off the "just grab someone else's shit because anything is better than a player in Cleveland" mindset.

Whether it's the Cavs or the Browns, nearly every take of yours for the past decade has been awful. Do we need to keep bringing up every single washed up player with a name, and how you'd give up the franchise for them?

Nobody is saying an elite QB is easy to get. I'm saying that there are only two ways to go--cheap or elite. If you can't get elite, go cheap and build an elite roster around him.

That's not just me saying what to do--I'm almost positive that it's the mindset that Stefanski, Berry, and DePodesta all subscribe to as well because the data backs it up. If you sink a large portion of your cap into Goff, Cousins, Matt Ryan, etc then you've cut yourself off at the knees.

But hey, keep jumping on the train that we need to chase any QB who has a name. If we can't get MVP Matt Ryan, maybe we can get Super Bowl MVP Joe Flacco or MVP candidate Carson Wentz!

 

[Out of the Rafters at the Q]

They're close? So where does Matt Ryan rank in compared to Baker and Cousins?

Slightly better than Cousins at this time. More steady with less of a ceiling than Baker at this time.

 

[Los216]

So you'd rather give the exact same money to a QB that is 10 years his senior so that the Browns have to go and draft and develop a replacement within a few years anyways?

Uh, actually yes. That's exactly what I would do. I'd sign or trade for a good veteran QB and have a developmental guy behind him. Maybe a 2nd or 3rd round guy. And the veteran QB doesn't have to be 10 years older than Baker. He just needs to be better. If he's 10 years older like Matt Ryan well then that means our developmental guy might be playing faster than expected.