Baker Mayfield will be the quarterback for the Carolina Panthers for the upcoming 2022-2023 NFL season in what will be his first season away from Cleveland. He wants a fresh start especially after Mayfield lost support from the Browns.
During his time with the Cleveland Browns he had a single season with a winning record in 2020 with 11 wins and 5 losses, while the other three seasons were bad and only in 2020 was he able to reach the playoffs.
Mayfield was a college star with a host of accolades ranging from Heisman Trophy, three-time Player of the Year, two-time Burlsworth Trophy, OFOY, OPOY, First-Team All-American, among others.
What are the strengths and weaknesses of Baker Mayfield?
Today, July 12, a statistical study was published on Reddit about Bakey Mayfield’s 479 significant dropbacks during the 2021 NFL season. The study was done by redditor u/JoeA_NFL, he exposed a lot of data about Mayfield’s game covering his offense power, pocket IQ, precision, accuracy, among others facts.
We took three key points from the study, his strengths, weaknesses and kryptonite since those are the factors that determine his game during the season and it is a type of information that could be interesting for Panthers’ fans.
Baker Mayfield’s strengths:
- Attacking the intermediate or 2nd level of the field is Baker’s greatest strength. Baker employs incredible zip, which lends itself to attacking the intermediate area of the field. Mayfield also has excellent accuracy, even when driving the ball with velocity.
- Threatens the whole field—can legitimately sling it 60 yards without losing control or significantly extending his release.
- Evades pressure with the best of them.
- Baker is amongst the most creative, playmaking QBs in the NFL when operating outside of structure.
Baker Mayfield’s weaknesses:
- Nervous in the pocket.
- Struggles to trust some receivers, albeit usually bad ones.
- Post-snap processing regressed in 2021. This may have been due to a combination of poor receiving options and a significant injury which extended his release, weakened his arm, and must have generally hampered his aggression.
- Occasionally does inexplicably stupid things that you don’t expect a veteran QB to do. Usually this is while playing hero ball, which is one of his bad habits. I hope that a more aggressive offense may relieve his itch to be aggressive.
- Mechanics broke down after injuries, as his torn labrum slowed down his release and increased the torso rotation he needed to get the same velocity on the ball.
Baker Mayfield’s Kryptonite:
- Disguised coverages – he likes to read pre-snap, not post-snap
- Because his WRs were terrible and unathletic, and the playcalling was very conservative, any condensed defense basically shut the whole offense down.
- Baker himself can be his own worst enemy (on bad days).
The full study is available here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nfl/comments/vx0ld4/i_graded_all_479_significant_dropbacks_of_baker/
