Baker Mayfield is the most productive, accomplished quarterback in the 2018 NFL Draft class and should absolutely be in the conversation for the Cleveland Browns.

Baker Mayfield, the reigning Heisman Trophy winner is easily the most accomplished quarterback in the class. He led Oklahoma to the college football playoff twice, three Big 12 titles and all kinds of hardware.

He’s also the most experienced quarterback in the draft class, has a great arm, production and efficiency against high level competition. Nevertheless, there are a lot of question with Mayfield and most of them have nothing to do with playing football.

And yet, he should still be in the mix to be the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft for the Cleveland Browns.

Production

68.5 completion percentage, 9.75 yards per attempt, 10.6 adjusted yards per attempt, 131 touchdowns, 30 interceptions (4.36:1), 304.3 yards per game in 48 games. 1,079 yards at 2.67 yards per carry and 21 rushing touchdowns.

Mayfield’s production is nothing short of spectacular and when it comes to data analysis, his numbers are among the best ever.

Measurements

Height: 6-0.625

Weight: 215 lbs

Hand Size: 9.25″

His height is what stands out. Mayfield is shorter than anyone would prefer at the quarterback position and the common refrain with him is if he was <insert a particular height>, he’d be the no doubt top pick of the draft.

His hands are above any threshold that could conceivably cause a problem, but they are on the smaller side. Mayfield does not have a problem, but they might be a symptom of what occasionally comes up on tape with some passes that flutter.

Athletic Testing

Age: 23 years old (Born April 14, 1995)

40 Yard Dash: 4.84s

Broad Jump: 9’3″

Vertical: 29″

3-Cone: 7s

Shuttle: 4.28s

Radar Gun: 57mph

From an athletic standpoint, Mayfield hit every threshold and nothing in a range that would be a concern. His velocity testing was fantastic and it’s obvious on tape when he rips it.

Compared to this quarterback class, Mayfield seems old, but he’s fine from that standpoint in terms of projections. He’s coming out as a fifth year senior, so he’s gonna be 23.

Arm Strength and Accuracy

In terms of his strength in his shoulder, Mayfield does not have as much arm strength as the other quarterbacks in the class and on the rare occasion that teams can get him to throw from a terrible platform, it can show up as pretty underwhelming. It’s not weak, but it’s not as good as the other top prospects.

What Mayfield does so well is how he syncs up his body and gets everything from his legs, hips, core and the sum of those parts ends up being the second strongest arm, based on the data. It’s instinctual for him and it’s just how he naturally throws the ball now.

From sheer strength (pushing the ball down the field) and velocity (how fast he can throw it), Mayfield can make any throw a team could ask. Having said that, there are some occasions, particularly when he goes deep, where the ball will come out of his hand wrong, flutter coming out of his hand and just die in the air going down the field. That’s something for Mayfield to continue working on and try to eliminate. It might be a result of losing his grip, which could be put on his hand size.

In terms of accuracy, Mayfield can be as accurate as any quarterback out there. Ball placement, timing can be outstanding and he has some truly spectacular throws as a result. There is some inconsistency and he will miss throws he shouldn’t.

Some of this is covered up by the fact that there are some wide open throws in Oklahoma’s offense, so pinpoint accuracy isn’t required to be successful. There are situations where Mayfield will miss plays he knows he should make in tighter coverage and he needs to continue to work to improve. And in what can be a game of inches, those missed opportunities can be costly.

What’s worth noting about Mayfield’s accuracy is it really does seem to be better when the stakes are higher. Road games and more difficult opponents, Mayfield seems to be better and make fewer mistakes in this area. He knows exactly where the ball needs to go, but occasionally just misses the target. In some respects, it may help Mayfield to have NFL defenses to improve against, forcing him to be more precise with greater consequences when he isn’t.

Throwing Motion

Mayfield’s throwing motion is fantastic. It’s compact, quick and very efficient. He can set up very quickly and fire the ball incredibly quickly even in some tight spots. Mayfield can deliver from a true overhand delivery, three quarters or occasionally will even go with a sidearm.

In addition to the velocity Mayfield is able to throw the ball with, part of the reason he’s difficult to intercept is his delivery doesn’t give anything away and it’s quick. He decides where he wants to go with the ball and it’s already out. Both of those combine to give Mayfield just a tiny bit more room for error than other quarterbacks.

This is also why, despite his height, he doesn’t get many passes batted down by defensive linemen. His ability to set up and throw makes it easier said than done to get up and block passes, because seeing when he’s gonna throw and then getting up quickly enough to do it is really difficult.

Mayfield’s throwing motion is ready to go right out of the box, shouldn’t change a thing. It’s pretty much flawless.

Footwork

For the most part, Mayfield has good footwork. He’s light on his feet, able to set up and throw quickly and doesn’t need a ton of space to get the ball out. Mayfield does a good job of throwing from a balanced throwing platform and getting the most on his passes as a result.

Mayfield will occasionally set a little wide and some coaches may have a bigger problem with this than others. With a wider alignment, it’s a little more difficult to switch targets crisply and smoothly in decision making. It can also lead to some passes sailing high, which occasionally shows up in Mayfield’s play.

Mayfield’s able to get away with it, because he is so light on his feet. Nevertheless, if Mayfield can shorten up his stance a little bit, it will make him play just a hair faster and improve his accuracy slightly.

Pocket Presence

Mayfield’s sense of the pocket can be downright uncanny. He is able to sense exactly where his blocks are going to be, where he can go to get pass rushers taken care of and make small movements to get big results. There are plays where it seems like Mayfield is moving a ton without covering much of any ground but it completely neutralizes a pass rush and buys him extra time, allowing him to stay in the pocket and making it easier for his linemen to do their job.

He’s pretty fearless in tight spaces and can be impressive with his quickness and composure in a phone booth and is pretty unfazed by contact. Mayfield is uniquely equipped to keep his eyes up, look down, clear a rush and then get them back up to find targets down the field. He’s pretty deadly when he’s moving up in the pocket and fires a laser to one of his receivers.

Part of the reason he’s able to do this is because Mayfield knows where all of his receivers are at any given time,including when the play breaks down. He’ll be surrounded by giants, seemingly lost in a scrum, come out and throw the ball right to a guy in a spot. It’s very deflating for opposing defenses and coordinators.

He’s also incredibly patient and has a great sense of where the line of scrimmage is and will push it to the absolute limit trying to find receivers and stressing defenses who don’t want to cover that long.

Having said that, Mayfield will occasionally take some sacks he has no business taking. In fact, most of those happen because he trusts his ability to make a lone rusher miss and misjudges it, getting sacked.

And there are some situations where it seems like Mayfield gets impatient or starts trying to work a little too fast and it can have some bad results. He shows great composure a lot of the time, but every so often pressure can start to get to him.

The hope is Mayfield will continue to have that impressive sense of what he can get away with and drive defenders crazy, making his offensive line block more efficiently. The question will be how much of an adjustment Mayfield will have to make against NFL speed. His pocket movement looks like it will translate, but some of the risks holding onto the ball too long will likely need to adapt.

Overall, Mayfield is really talented in the pocket, but he will take some awful sacks and the team that takes him will live with them because of the payoff. Nevertheless, Mayfield seems likely to try to improve this with team and as he adapts to the league, may improve his ratio of good decisions to those bad sacks.

Mobility

Mayfield has great mobility without having great mobility. He’s not a supremely gifted athlete but he makes the most of it, takes what the defense gives him and operates so much in making opponents slow down against him because of uncertainty of what he’s going to do. Mayfield loves to use these little jab steps to make quick moves or show like he’s going to make quick movements that make defensive linemen make mistakes or change their angles enough to where he can avoid them.

He’s not overly fast when he rolls out or picks up yards with his legs, but he can get a first down or get into the end zone with some good footwork. What stands out about Mayfield is he’s pretty good about getting himself drilled and actually avoids a lot more contact than some might think. He’s not afraid to run the ball, but he doesn’t give defenders many free shots.

At times, Mayfield will overestimate his own speed and pull down the ball running for it and get stopped short of first downs. He’s a pass first quarterback but teams that cover well can get him a little impatient and find him trying to find yardage on the ground. It tends to work out better for the defense because he may get some yardage, but he’s not someone that’s going to kill teams on the ground.

The other issue that can occasionally prop up is if Mayfield will try to run a defender over to make a point. Fans and teammates probably love this, but it’s not prudent in the grand scheme of things and if it leads to a turnover or worse, injury, it’s an unnecessary risk. Fortunately, Mayfield has been pretty injury free.

Decision Making

Mayfield is the best decision maker in the class. He protects the ball better than any of the other quarterbacks while also being one of the most aggressive. Some will credit a lot of this to the offense he ran, but Mayfield really does well for himself in avoiding bad situations. Occasionally, he gets fooled or simply misses something but on the whole, he’s a quarterback that protects the ball while going for the opponent’s throat.

In fact, the most questionable area of Mayfield’s decision making is when it comes to giving up on plays. He’ll hold onto the ball too long and take some sacks on plays where he should throw the ball away. This doesn’t result in turnovers but it does kill drives, putting his team in bad down and distance situations.

When Mayfield diagnoses what he’s looking at correctly, which is at an incredibly high rate, he makes great decisions on where the ball needs to go and how it needs to get there. He has a great sense of what defenses are trying to do, where his teammates are going to be and how best to maximize them, finding the right windows.

Mayfield does a great job of manipulating defenses with his eyes and opening up opportunities. Some of the windows or wide open passes that Oklahoma had with Mayfield at quarterback were as a result of Mayfield understanding how to hold or move safeties only to come back to favorable single coverage matchups.

And along with this, as many throws as Mayfield has that seem easy, he also has a number of keyhole throws where the ball has to be in a perfect spot for his receiver to make the play and to find the hole between defenders. He’s got a great sense of that timing and understanding how to make those passes.

If Mayfield is going to make a mistake throwing the football, it’s usually because he’s late on a throw. He either finds a receiver he likes late or simply doesn’t time it up as well as he should and the ball will get there later than it should, allowing defenders to close and make a play on the ball or make a reception more difficult than it should be. These problematic throws also tend to be down the field.

Because of the offense Mayfield played in, this is going to be a question mark people hold against him until he proves it on an NFL stage. However, even when Mayfield participated in the Senior Bowl against top competition in pro style play calls, he still knew exactly where the holes in the defense were and how he had to time passes, which enabled him to carve up defenses in 7 on 7 and team periods with receivers he had never worked with. That won’t silence those doubts, but that’s evidence of really understanding what defenses are doing and how to exploit them. He just doesn’t make many mistakes with the football.

Miscellaneous

Mayfield is the most efficient quarterback in college football history. Based on his numbers and efficiency, Mayfield set the record for the most efficient individual season in college history in 2016, then broke that record in 2017 and his entire career is more efficient than any quarterback that has ever played in college.

Mayfield is the first ever walk-on to win the Heisman Trophy. He’s also in extremely exclusive company as only the seventh player to be a three-time Heisman finalist. That list includes Glenn Davis and Doc Blanchard from Army, Doak Walker from SMU, Archie Griffin from Ohio State, Herschel Walker from Georgia and Tim Tebow from Florida.

Mayfield was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. An incident made more infamous by the existence of video, Mayfield was extremely drunk, tried to escape law enforcement and took a header into a concrete retaining wall when he was tackled by the cop.

Mayfield has had multiple antics that put him in the spotlight. Planting the flag, pegging an opponent in warmups, grabbing his junk in a gesture to the opposing sideline, wearing a t-shirt with a message, Mayfield has done some things that have gotten him some attention. Whether it’s all in good fun or a “distraction” depends on who one asks.

Mayfield has started 48 games in his collegiate career. An overwhelming number of starting quarterbacks in the NFL were three-year starters and experience matters. Mayfield enters the league with the most experience of any of the quarterback prospects.

Mayfield on the Browns

Short of adapting and mastering a new offense, Mayfield looks ready to go out of the box. He seems capable of taking the starting job from Tyrod Taylor. In the event he does sit, it will largely allow him to fully adjust to the speed of the game and really master his offense.

The other thing sitting would hopefully help Mayfield do is figure out what he got away with at Oklahoma that would or wouldn’t work in the NFL. This could apply to both some of the throws he makes as well as how well his ability to elude pressure will translate. Rather than finding out the hard way some might not work in games that count, he may temper his own game ahead of time.

Mayfield doesn’t need to overhaul anything about his game, but it’s about consistency and simply getting the best results each and every time he goes back to pass. Trying to eliminate some of the passes that flutter, improving his footwork and just continuing to improve on what he already knows about defenses could enable him to hit the ground running when he does get onto the field.

Mayfield’s relationship with the quarterback coach will be important. They will be tasked with being a moderating influence Mayfield’s more impulsive habits while also making sure he doesn’t lose any of the things that make him special. Mayfield is also pretty Hue-proof, which is also appealing.

Conclusions

Mayfield is an incredibly accomplished quarterback that has basically had to scratch and claw for everything he’s ever gotten in football. The edge he brings to the position is one he’s unlikely to lose and that makes him an ruthless competitor. Combine that with the questions about his height, the offense he plays in and he has one giant chip on his shoulder, which can be good and bad.

Mayfield’s arm talent and velocity are outstanding. He’s got the ability to be an incredibly accurate quarterback, but both suffer from some inconsistency. Mayfield reads defenses well, deals with pressure effectively and has a knack for making plays.

There are areas where Mayfield can continue to improve, but even if the argument is Mayfield is maxed out as a player, where he is right now can compete in the NFL at a pretty high level.

The fact is that while Mayfield has some rough edges to round out, the biggest question marks about his game have nothing to do with his game. His height has yet to hold him back from being successful in any sense. The controversial antics have never impacted him on the field. His arrest and character require vetting like any quarterback.

None of these things have made an iota of difference on the field. They’re contrived and if Mayfield goes on to be successful, all anyone will be left with is a quarterback who had a great arm and was incredibly efficient on the field, wondering why anyone was worried about this other nonsense.

Mayfield warrants a top pick and the team that gets him will love him, while every opponent will absolutely hate playing against him. He’s the safest quarterback in the class based on three years of incredible play on a weekly basis and against top competition.