Remember when we all thought the Browns were the next dominant team of the NFL? Or that Carson Wentz was a no-brainer future MVP? Or that Sean McVay was the league’s next big mastermind? Some of the NFL teams, players, and coaches who have been in the spotlight over the past few seasons are going to have temperate expectations in 2020 – but that does not mean we should count them. welcome to The RingerPost-Hype Week, as we revisit some of the league’s biggest stories from past seasons that are not getting as much love for this campaign.
Baker Mayfield’s engine has always run on sadness. He categorizes and catalogs all the bad things that are said about him, and uses the slights as fuel. In high school, he did not receive an offer of a high-level university program, so he went on to Texas Tech and won the team start signal. At Texas Tech, he said he had trouble landing a scholarship, so he moved to Oklahoma and won the runway there as well. At Oklahoma, he did not like the way Ohio State celebrated a 2016 victory over the Sooners, so he went to Columbus the following year and planted a flag at Ohio Stadium after beating the Buckeyes. He even went crazy on Kansas once. Kansas.
Mayfield has followed every criticism of him – that he is too short, that he is too brash, that his arm is not strong enough – and laughed at her on her way to lifting the Heisman Trophy and being one of the greatest statistical quarterbacks in the college to become football history. Despite some people dismissing his success as the product of head coach Lincoln Riley’s system, Mayfield made up sidewalks and said no. 1 pick in the 2018 class. Even when he exceeded all expectations, there were always more and more people ready to say that Mayfield was flawed. Its doubtful fuel seemed to be a sustainable source of energy.
But last year, people have largely stopped doubting him. After Mayfield turned around an expensive 2018 Browns season and set the NFL rookie record for touchdown passes, he silenced most of his critics. Then, in March 2019, Cleveland traded for star wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. Suddenly, Mayfield’s success was no longer doubted, but expected. The Browns went in last fall as a trendy playoff pick; I predicted Mayfield would be called MVP league. After all, quarterbacks often take leaps forward in their second seasons; the past two MVPs have been second-year quarterbacks, and it could have been three if not for a 2017 injury to Carson Wentz. What would the Mayfield leap look like after such a spectacular rookie attempt?
Instead of leaping forward, however, Mayfield took a step back. The Browns went 6-10, and avoided a finish at AFC North in last place only because the Bengals went 2-14. (One of Cincinnati’s two wins was against Mayfield’s Browns; Baker threw three picks in that game.) Mayfield ranks 31st among 32 qualifying quarterbacks in passer rating, 36th out of 39 quarterbacks in Pro Football Focus’ adjusted completion percentage, and tied for 27th in adjusted net yard per attempt. Beckham had the worst season of his career, placing a career low in yards per game and the third-lowest catch percentage of any wide receiver with at least 50 receptions. Cleveland’s offense regressed from an average of 22.4 points per game to 20.9. Freddie Kitchens, the coach who hired the Browns for the 2019 season after Mayfield went to bat for him, was fired after just one season.
The 2019 Mayfield game showed signs of a quarterback losing in his own head. He looked sluggish in the pocket for the first time in his career, and was forced to move on to Beckham and Jarvis Landry amid fears they were not getting enough goals. “I lost myself,” Mayfield says of the 2019 season. He also admits he was not in his best form after his few pounds. (The Browns agree.)
The most shocking thing about Mayfield’s performance was the sheer number of interceptions. He threw 21 picks in 2019, which would lead the league in almost every other season, but finished second last fall, thanks to the virtuoso campaign of Jameis Winston. Mayfield threw 21 combined picks over his three seasons at Oklahoma – and matched that total last season for the Browns alone. He never threw three interceptions in one of his 40 games at Oklahoma; he did so in three games last year.
At Oklahoma, Mayfield was the sign of efficiency. As a senior he placed what was then the highest passer efficiency rating in the history of football. The record he had broken his own assessment of his junior year. He also set what was then the yards-per-attempt record (11.5), and his junior mark (11.1) hit the third time behind Michael Vick’s 1999 season. Normally, we do not associate Proud Quarterbacks with efficiency; when we hear of a QB with swagger, we see a player who is ready to throw in double coverage, with confidence that he can turn the needle. But Mayfield’s confidence did not manifest itself in unnecessary throws. At every scene, he knew that sooner or later one of his receivers would jump open, and that when he did, he would be deadeye just to hit him.
Now Mayfield regularly does the least efficient thing possible – throwing the ball to the other team. So what happens to all these picks? Let’s look at all of his 2019 interceptions to find out:
Two things stand out from this compilation. The first is that many of these came on forced throws to mean receivers, particularly to Landry and Beckham. They finished 10th and 15th in goals, respectively, while no other Browns player finished among the top 125. This approach did not work. When Mayfield faced Beckham and Landry, Mayfield scored 10 touchdowns and 15 interceptions. He said last November that he “had to force” Beckham; meanwhile, Beckham complained about his lack of involvement with the official in Cleveland.
The other thing that stands out is how much of Mayfield’s balls jump out of the hands of his receivers. By my count, eight of his picks happened this way, including some pretty hilarious ones.
I mean, come on.
I mean, COME ON.
Mayfield got sorry on this throw, but we can not trade if his passes were perfect. The throw to Dontrell Hilliard was behind him; the throw to Antonio Callaway – which is perhaps the funniest drip I’ve ever seen – was low. While the Browns receivers clearly needed to do a better job of catching the ball, Mayfield was in sync with many of his goals, including Beckham and Landry. Beckham must have gotten the pass in the clip below – but why could Mayfield, who was hyper-accurate in Oklahoma, rain an open Beckham on a fast-paced route?
These were never problems for Mayfield in college. In Oklahoma, Mayfield had feature receivers – CeeDee Lamb and Hollywood Brown released the first pool picks, while Dede Westbrook proved to be an NFL player of quality – but never went after them. He always believed that his boys would get open, and that he was good enough to get them the ball when they did.
Perhaps the strangest thing about Mayfield’s 2019 fight is that they came out of a clean slate in the first place. Pro Football Focus rated Mayfield as the 26th-best quarterback from a clean sheet last season. Mayfield had 15 interceptions out of a clean slate – but three QBs in the PFF database have ever thrown more in one season. (One was Jameis Winston last year, one was Brett Favre in 2006, and – I absolutely love this stat – Eli Manning did it three times, in 2007, 2010 and 2013.)
I believe Mayfield is still the hyper-accurate quarterback he was in college. His problems – inconvenience in clean pockets, a self-imposed mandate to get the ball to his top goals, inconsistent connections with named goals – are incompatible with who he was as a younger player.
Maybe Mayfield just could not operate without the haters. A career built on dubious doubters collapsed when hype skepticism replaced. The good news is that the haters are back. The Browns have regained their place in the imagination of football fans as a hopeless whirlpool of bad coaches and bust quarterbacks. Mayfield’s dubious engine must have a full tank again.
He would rather hope that this is also the case. Because the other option is that the people who found flaws in Mayfield’s game were actually right.
