The Rise And Fall of Baker Mayfield

Baker Mayfield's football career took off with a meteoric rise to super stardom but after pulling off the impossible in the blink of an eye he's hit rock bottom at the age of just 27 his career has already involved more ups and downs than your favorite roller coaster ride Mayfield's ride started from the day he was born when a football was essentially placed in his hand growing up in Austin Texas with a dad who played college football at the University of Houston football for Mayfield has always been way more than just a game it was more like a religion he also had a brother who was five years older than him but Baker paid no attention to that age Gap it didn't matter what activity the two were doing he desperately wanted to beat his older bro this win at all costs mentality shine through the most whenever he played Sports at Lake Travis High School Mayfield played baseball and football but heading into his Junior season he still wasn't the starting quarterback at the point where most top prospects had their mailboxes overflowing with college recruiting letters Mayfield needed the starter to get injured in the season opener to finally become qb1 but once he got his chance Mayfield never looked back over the next two seasons he led his team to a 25-2 record and a state championship Mayfield finished his high school career with 6255 passing yards 67 touchdowns and only eight interceptions despite these nearly perfect stats ads and winning a State title which in Texas will get your free meals in your hometown for the rest of your life he never became a big time College recruit maybe it was because of his underwhelming physical stature but Mayfield didn't receive a single scholarship offer from a major program rated as a three-star recruit he had scholarship offers from schools like Florida Atlantic New Mexico rice and Wyoming meanwhile places like Baylor and Texas Tech only gave him preferred walk-on offers this lack of belief from major programs was a tough pill for Mayfield to swallow he could have just gone to one of the smaller schools on scholarship and potentially immediately been the starter there but Mayfield had much grander plans he said I easily could have gone to a place like Florida Atlantic but my dad pushed me to realize that my dream was to play somewhere big Mayfield decided to bet on himself and walk on at Texas Tech Life as a walk-on is supposed to be far from glamorous at Power five schools they almost always begin their careers on the bench in fact during their freshman Seasons they're lucky to even see the field at all but somebody must have forgotten to tell Texas Tech or May field this ahead of his freshman year following an injury to the Red Raiders starter Mayfield shocked Everyone by doing something previously never done before at that level in the history of the sport he became the first walk-on true freshman quarterback to start a division one season opener that year Mayfield started eight games and threw for 2 315 yards 12 touchdowns and nine interceptions it was a solid enough showing to bring home the Big 12 Conference freshman offensive player of the year award but on the same day Mayfield learned that he had won the award he received other news that forever changed his life path it turned out that despite his performance he was still not receiving a scholarship the following spring Mayfield felt deeply disrespected and had lost all trust in the Red Raider coaching staff moving forward so it was time for him to bet on himself one more time he announced that he would be leaving Texas Tech they didn't recruit me grew up 15 miles from their campus I can't stand them and in January of his freshman year Mayfield and his mom drove to the University of Oklahoma to do something Unthinkable they enrolled him in classes at Oklahoma without saying a word to anyone on the Sooners football coaching staff it wasn't until a month later that the head coach confirmed Mayfield would be joining the team and he introduces himself I said so your Baker Mayfield you know I didn't I had no idea but due to the big 12's inter-conference transfer rules and an unsuccessful appeal of the restrictions he was forced to sit out the entire upcoming season after leading Oklahoma scout team for a year Mayfield was finally eligible to shoot up for real game action after earning himself the starting spot Mayfield over the next two seasons was a man on a mission determined to prove to everyone that he belonged he threw for a combined 11 365 yards and 76 touchdowns with just 15 interceptions as both years he was a finalist for college football's most prestigious honor the Heisman Trophy but being a finalist is never good enough for Mayfield no matter how much of an honor it may be so his senior season was his final chance to win the award Mayfield looked like he was on a different level than everyone else on the field that year he finished second in all of college football in passing yards and touchdowns with 4627 and 43 Mayfield also led the nation in completion percentage at 70.5 while only throwing for six interceptions is video game-like numbers were more than enough for him to finally bring home the Heisman this year's Heisman Trophy winner is Baker Mayfield of the University of Oklahoma Mayfield did so in almost historic fashion receiving 86 percent of the possible points which was the third highest in the awards long storied history and he became the first ever walk-on player to win it ahead of the 2018 NFL draft Mayfield was viewed as one of the top if not the top prospects he had just gone on a three-year Rampage of absolutely shredding defenses with extreme Precision by the time draft night rolled around it had become clear that the Cleveland Browns were taking him with the first overall pick though Mayfield's production in college completely warranted the selection he was never supposed to be the number one pick from my perspective he was the number four overall quarterback right here's a guy who wasn't the starter going into his junior year of high school never got any scholarship offers from major college programs and had to walk on at two different schools with a background like that just getting drafted at all would be an amazing accomplishment and yet he now had the weight of an entire city on his supposedly undersized shoulders as they expected him to turn around their tortured franchise Brown's fans were starving for a winning football team by week 3 of the 2018 season the Browns winless streak sat at 19 games as Mayfield could only watch serving as the team's backup but during that week 3 game with Cleveland trailing the Jets 14-nothing and seemingly well on their way to extending their streak to 20. Brown's starting QB Tyrod Taylor went down with an injury when Mayfield came in to take his first career NFL snap there was a sense of hope and excitement that Cleveland hadn't felt in years he was someone who had been doubted countless times but never stopped fighting the similarities between him and the name on the front of his jersey Were Striking so when Mayfield became the first player in NFL history since 1961 to come off the bench in his debut and throw for more than 200 yards and Lead his team to its first win of the Season Cleveland couldn't contain his love for Baker number six jerseys flew off the shelves and filled the stadium for every remaining Brown's home game he led Cleveland to a 6-7 record the rest of the way while finishing below 500 may not seem impressive the Browns had managed to win more than five games only once in the previous 10 seasons and that was a year in which they finished just seven and nine in addition to actually winning games Mayfield was balling out on the stat sheet as a rookie appearing in 14 games he threw for 3725 yards and 27 touchdowns which broke Peyton Manning and Russell Wilson's previously shared record for most as a rookie after about as perfect of a rookie campaign as the Browns or Mayfield could have asked for year two expectations for him were Sky High especially considering that during the offseason Cleveland went out and got Mayfield a new Lethal Weapon in Odell Beckham Jr heading into 2019 the Browns and Mayfield were seen as the League's Darlings on paper they had the makings of a potential Super Bowl Contender which hadn't been said about a Browns team in decades will Baker lead the Browns to a Super Bowl in his career I think so yes but football isn't decided on paper it's decided on the field and that's where the Browns and Mayfield failed to meet expectations Cleveland finished the year 6 and 10 as Mayfield took a step back in his development throwing for nearly as many interceptions as touchdowns although very disappointing the Browns chalked these strong struggles up to poor coaching so they fired first year head coach Freddie kitchens Freddy kitchens has been fired as the head coach of the Browns according to our Adam schefter and Chris Mortensen the Browns finished six and ten after hiring the Vikings offensive coordinator Kevin stefanski to be their new head coach Cleveland was cautiously optimistic that he could help Mayfield turn things around again the duo went out and led Cleveland to an 11-5 record and their first postseason appearance since 2002 Mayfield threw for 3563 yards and 26 touchdowns while getting his turnover problem under control by throwing only eight interceptions in the Wild Card round the task of facing the team's arch rival the Steelers on the road got that much tougher as stefanski was forced to miss the game due to covet without his head coach and play caller Mayfield was forced to step up in the franchise's biggest game in nearly two decades he threw for 264 yards and three touchdowns in the Browns first playoff win since the 1994 season the Steelers in the opening round of the playoffs although they fell in the next round in a devastating 22-17 loss leading the Browns to a playoff win had Cleveland putting Mayfield on a pedestal that only LeBron James had been put on in recent years so when the 2021 season arrived the city once again was having dreams of making the Super Bowl but the Browns and Mayfield got off to a nightmare start in week two he suffered a partially torn labor that he continued to play with until re-aggravating it in week six Mayfield missed the Browns next game which was his first missed game since he took over as the starter along with battling injury Mayfield had a new fight on his hands one that involved his star-wide receiver's dad with obj having gotten off to the worst start in his NFL career his dad Odell Beckham senior ripped Mayfield with an Instagram post shared just hours before the League's trade deadline the post featured an 11-minute video meant to highlight Mayfield's poor throws in decision-making I do not condone his father chiming in on social media the way to did Odell Beckham Jr that's you bro it was unheard of for this to happen at the NFL level but also shows just how polarizing Mayfield has been ultimately the beckhams got their wish as the Browns traded obj to the Rams with him now gone Mayfield was determined to show he wasn't the issue but in week 10 he suffered a right knee contusion that further slowed him down by week 17 Cleveland's hopes had been brutally crushed as they were already eliminated from playoff contention in 14 games played Mayfield finished with 3010 passing yards 17 touchdowns and 13 interceptions it was a year that had Brown spans completely divided one side blamed Mayfield for the team's struggles and wanted to move on from him right now I don't think he's the right guy for us while the other wanted to give him another chance and thought injuries affected his play I love Baker a lot he's hurt right now this past off season while Browns fans went back and forth with each other the team reached its own conclusion it was time to make a change Cleveland traded for DeSean Watson and signed him to a historic contract extension it was the team's way of saying they no longer believed in Baker just like in college Mayfield felt disrespected and wanted out I feel disrespected 100 because I was told one thing and they completed another so he requested a trade after struggling to find someone willing to take on his contract the Browns traded him to the Panthers for a conditional fifth round pick and after having been given up on and thrown into a quarterback battle in a new place Mayfield felt right at home in college he had been in this exact position and this was the type of environment he had thrived in just like back then he went out and won the starting job he was dead set on proving the Browns wrong and showing the world that he was a solution not the problem except this time there was no fairy tale ending thank you in six games starting for the Panthers Mayfield finished with a 1-5 record while completing under 60 percent of his passes and throwing for six touchdowns and six interceptions the average quarterback rating is 50. Mayfields was 18.6 a league low having already been benched Carolina decided that still wasn't enough on the Monday following their week 13 game the Panthers released Baker upon that breaking news in the NFL were the Panthers are cutting ties of quarterback Baker Mayfield he had officially gone from being the face of a franchise to so undesired that a team got rid of a mid-season for nothing in return while only being a game and a half out of the playoffs for them to no longer want him on the roster or even in the facility in the middle of the playoff hunt speaks volumes for how far Mayfield has fallen but because he has reached Rock Bottom so quickly he has been given one more chance as the Rams claimed him the day after his release from the Panthers only time will tell whether Baker Mayfield can revive his once promising career and with a story as dramatic is his Hollywood is the perfect place for the next and potentially Final Chapter to be written [Music]

Channel: Nonstop

Views: 581,535

Keywords: NFL, Baker Mayfield

Id: XIzow6d5Tyo

Length: 12min 45sec (765 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 13 2023