Baker Mayfield sucks

[WNCRavensFan]

But yeah, he was anointed as a can’t-miss Next Big Thing during his RS freshman season at USC and pundits hate admitting they might have been wrong.

You may have a thing there. It's like WWE trying to "put over" one of their guys way too hard and the fans not buying into it.

This may very well have its roots in college and some people at USC that have influence on the NFL.

I had Darnold projected as "starting NFL QB" and not much better, and it appears for now that it's what he'll be. People who looked at his college production generally came away with questions about consistency, particularly with the INTs.

[QuothDaRaven]

I certainly wouldn’t say he has nice mechanics. His upper body looks great but his lower body is an absolute mess. Beyond his occasionally insane decision making, his lower body is a big reason why he throws so many picks. He’s got a live arm but it’s gonna stay erratic as hell until he cleans that up.

I thought he came into the league with comparable upside to Lamar but even more issues to fix (lower body mechanics, processing, decision making, pocket presence chief among them). It was just more hidden beneath the prototype size/frame/arm strength. Obviously his development has not gone nearly as well as Lamar’s so far lmao. I still think he could be Andrew Luck if he hits his ceiling but Gase has him right on the edge of irreparably ruined.

But yeah, he was anointed as a can’t-miss Next Big Thing during his RS freshman season at USC and pundits hate admitting they might have been wrong.

His “seeing ghosts” comment is going to haunt him, no pun intended, for the rest of his career. It’s his Butt Fumble. The only way to change that history is to rewrite it with a stellar future. I don’t really see it, but who knows, he might be the next Chad Pennington for those guys.


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[NjRavensFan]

Well maybe when the Jets are cellar-dwellers again and Gase gets fired, they'll start to admit it, although they'll probably just put all the blame on Gase.

I mean that would be the correct place to put the blame imo. Darnold was a great prospect. Sometimes great prospects don’t work out (the only thing these pundits were “wrong” about was labeling Darnold close to can’t-miss. He had some pretty significant warts to his game). The system Gase ran last year was pretty much the opposite of what I thought Darnold needed to develop.

Take a dude with happy feet who makes terrible decisions when pressured, stick him behind a shitty OL, and run an offense predicated primarily on slow-developing deep routes. It was baffling.

Regardless of whose “fault” it is, though, Lamar and Darnold have been in the league two years. Their performance is on tape for everyone to see. Anyone who says they’d take Darnold over Lamar is just trying to be provocative.

[WNCRavensFan]

FWIW, here's how I had the 2018 QB class at the time of the draft

1. Baker Mayfield - franchise QB - mid Rd 1
2. Lamar Jackson - good QB - early Rd 2
3. Sam Darnold - starting QB - late Rd 2
4. Josh Allen - boom/bust QB - Rd 3
5. Mason Rudolph - backup QB - Rd 4
6. Josh Rosen - bust - Rd 6/7

My most contraversial assessment at the time was Rosen, who didn't even make my top five and who I probably would have drafted Luke Falk over much less Mason Rudolph. Welp, that's no longer a topic.

I hopped on board the Baker Train early. Like many, I did not expect him to be drafted first overall. When the Browns took him, I thought -- there's only one way this guy flops and that's if the Browns "Brown" him -- and what do you know, it looks like they're in the process of doing just that. Sadly I have to continue to root for this scenario; the more I look like an idiot over Baker, the better the Ravens are doing in their division.

Lamar on the other hand... I thought we was going to be good. I was part of the crew that believed he was a better passer than the average person gave him credit for. When the Ravens traded up for him at pick 32 I was a very happy man. Absolute perfect spot to take him. Last pick and lowest contract value w/ that crucial 5th year option. But MVP in year 2?? No way. He is a special player from the neck up and as an armchair evaluator I couldn't account for that.

Looking forward it seems like the order is this:

1. Lamar Jackson - duh. MVP.
2. Josh Allen - developing closer to boom than bust but still major accuracy question marks.
3. Sam Darnold - right about where I thought he'd be.
4. Baker Mayfield - in the process of being Browns-ed but I still think he can vault to #2.
5. Mason Rudolph - backup.
6. Josh Rosen - bust.

#s 2-4 are still very close and have to sort themselves out. However, ten years from now we're probably going to look at "the four QBs drafted before Lamar Jackson" like we do "the X number of position Y drafted before HOFer Z" today.

[Culex]

I’ve definitely been extremely argumentative out of boredom lately but I genuinely have no idea why that point specifically would be the one you point to.

Also I don’t think you ever had that crown to begin with. You’ve never been all that argumentative, at least not that I’ve seen. Your crown is the one for misguided self-importance.

I've really toned it down since Joe Flacco left. That and my personal life has just been far too hectic for the past year lol

[HbgPARavenfan]

I thought Lamar might be great. But I thought Baker was the next Drew Brees. Was very scared of Baker.

The idea baker didn't look great his rookie year is pure revisionist history through the lense of his second year.


He was the focal point of turning around a 1-32 team....

I get he's a brown so we want to clown him,.... But if ppl think baker isn't going to improve I don't think they watch much outside of Ravens games

[HbgPARavenfan]

So the first one is indeed a pundit saying his prime will be shorter than many.

The second one is just commentary on what appears to me like a fairly reasonable betting line. 27 passing TDs is technically “a regression” but it would’ve had him tied for 4th in the NFL last year. His stats are probably going to get worse in some areas; that doesn’t mean he got worse as a player.

The third one is a Browns message board lmao

Ravens fans are hyper sensitive about Lamar.

Literally all I've ever said is I don't think harbs is the best coach for him because he is more than happy to run him and out him at higher risk for injury and that is apparently hating on Lamar.... Even when u say ud be terrified of Lamar in a pats uniform.


Suggesting that as Lamar ages, he should have less designed runs is basically equivalent to saying he's garbage on RSR

[moviemaniacx]

I get he's a brown so we want to clown him,.... But if ppl think baker isn't going to improve I don't think they watch much outside of Ravens games

The question for me is "does he want to improve?" He's a prick who bought into his own hype and decided to make commercials instead of honing his craft and working hard to get better. He was scared to stay in the pocket sometimes, he forced throws and seemed to lack any sort of confidence.

That's not saying he won't improve, especially now with less pressure from the hype and a decent coach in Stefanski who made Cousins look good by forcing the Vikings to be a run-heavy offense with Dalvin Cook. The Browns have Chubb and should follow that same run-first blueprint. If Baker is willing to buy into it, he should be fine. But will he?

[JimZipCode]

... and a decent coach in Stefanski who made Cousins look good by forcing the Vikings to be a run-heavy offense with Dalvin Cook.

Which parenthetically is how Kubiak made Joe look good, using Justin Forsett.

[HotInHere]

The idea baker didn't look great his rookie year is pure revisionist history through the lense of his second year.


He was the focal point of turning around a 1-32 team....

I get he's a brown so we want to clown him,.... But if ppl think baker isn't going to improve I don't think they watch much outside of Ravens games

I think it's the opposite. If you only watched Baker against the Ravens in 2018, that's where you'd have very high hopes for him. Because that was the one good defense he actually played well against, and he played very well against us in both games that year. It's the rest of the season that made you think that maybe he was overhyped. And I thought coming into last year he was overhyped. He showed promise in 2018, but he also showed a lot of issues. He was not good at finding his secondary reads, and in many games he wasn't nearly as accurate as he was expected to be.

The narrative of him being the next great QB was build primarily on his setting the rookie TD record, and him having a strong finishing kick in 2018. But as I pointed out earlier, over a quarter of those TDs were against the atrocious Bengals, and all of his wins down the stretch came against losing teams with bad defenses.

But if you watched his other games that year, against decent (not great) defenses, you saw a guy struggling. Against PIT, LAC, and HOU (ranked 6, 9, and 12 in defense) he threw four TDs and six picks. His completion percentage was 58%. 6.5 YPA. In short, he wasn't good.

All QBs play worse against better defenses. That's a given. But these weren't the '85 Bears he was going against, and he looked like shit.

So as a rookie, I saw him as a guy with room to improve. A guy who had to take the next step. A promising start to his career, but FAR from a finished product. And the NFL landscape is littered with guys who had promising starts to their career and then never moved forward from there. The coronation was definitely premature, and it wasn't hindsight viewed through Ravens goggles. It was from actually watching the kid play.

[Captain Silver]

The idea baker didn't look great his rookie year is pure revisionist history through the lense of his second year.


He was the focal point of turning around a 1-32 team....

I get he's a brown so we want to clown him,.... But if ppl think baker isn't going to improve I don't think they watch much outside of Ravens games

I think firing Hue Jackson and putting Greg Williams in charge has proven to be the real reason the Browns turned around that year. He ran a tighter ship and the Browns played as a team. Then they fired Greg went with Larry the Cable guy and the Browns looked and played like individuals. Sure they had talent that got them some wins, but they would have been. So much more formidable had they kept Greg Williams.

[moviemaniacx]

I think firing Hue Jackson and putting Greg Williams in charge has proven to be the real reason the Browns turned around that year. He ran a tighter ship and the Browns played as a team. Then they fired Greg went with Larry the Cable guy and the Browns looked and played like individuals. Sure they had talent that got them some wins, but they would have been. So much more formidable had they kept Greg Williams.

Browns gonna Brown.