Baker Mayfield Is Completing the NFL’s Oddest Transformation
Credit: Junfu Han - Imagn Images
Baker Mayfield entered his postgame presser on Sunday afternoon after his Tampa Bay Buccaneers hung tough in a 20-16 win against the NFC-contending Detroit Lions. He would finish out the week the NFL’s leader in passing touchdowns (5), total touchdowns (6), as well as second in passer rating (129.1) and yards per attempt (9.7). It’s exactly what you want to see from a former No. 1 overall pick.
On the podium in front of the media, Mayfield said all the things you’d want a top quarterback to say. Did he focus on his performance, where he ran in the go-ahead touchdown that would hold as the game-winning play? No, he first praised the team, then he offered an apology to his defense. The Bucs offense had the ball with a minute left, but couldn’t get a first down to seal the game, forcing the depleted defense to make one final stop in the last 30 seconds.
“I said it on the field after the game: It’s completely on me, on the last drive, not making [the Lions] burn their last timeout before [we punted] the ball,” said Mayfield, humbly taking accountability and giving his teammates their due.
If you were a fan of the Cleveland Browns, Carolina Panthers, or Oklahoma Sooners, you had to be confused, even if you considered yourself pro-Baker at the time. Wait a minute, this is Baker Mayfield?!
Mayfield wasn’t the humble, team-first guy when he first came onto the scene. He was, by his detractors accounts, the privileged villain. By the time he left Carolina, most fans saw him as not just a bust, but an overly-cocky heel who got his comeuppance.
It feels so long ago, but it was barely a half-decade since the football world was looking at Mayfield and saying, “Get a load of this punk.”
November 18, 2017: Oklahoma 41 Kansas 3. The no handshake Baker Mayfield crotch grab game. pic.twitter.com/9KYgL6gSHR
— This Day In Sports Clips (@TDISportsClips) November 18, 2021
Maybe the whole Tim Tebow thing was tiresome, but Mayfield took it way too far in the other direction. He wasn’t “the guy who beats up on your team, but you have to respect on some level because of how he carries himself.” No, he played football like the rich kid who’s bragging that his dad is gonna bulldoze your community center in an ’80s movie.
He went to the Browns, and started solid. Then, despite putting up a solid 87.8 passer rating over four seasons, it fell off a cliff. After a tutors season in which he played through an injury, Cleveland tossed him aside. Well, that’s probably a bad way of putting it. More like, they gleefully knifed Mayfield. They not only traded a million picks for Deshaun Watson, whose off-field behavior was so disgusting that it actually did make the crotch-grabbing Mayfield look like Tebow, but they banished him to the Panthers, the NFL’s wasteland.
And mind you: This is the Cleveland Browns who did this. The franchise whose best quarterback of the 21st century before Mayfield was a three-way tie between a knee-less Robert Griffin III, a washed-up game-manager in Trent Dilfer, and Josh McCown, who’ll be part of the inaugural class of the Backup Quarterback Hall of Fame once somebody establishes one as a transparent money-laundering scheme. Those Browns said “Yeah, eff this guy. Sure, we’ll take a conditional fifth-round pick for him, who cares?”
It didn’t take too long for Carolina to get rid of him, either. He lost his job to XFL Legend P.J. Walker. Once that happened, Mayfield asked out, and the Panthers basically said, “LOL, fine.”
And again, plenty of people in the NFL world were dancing on this dude’s grave. The media in Cleveland was thrilled to get their whacks in on him, printing dirty laundry about how the team viewed him as “childish and immature,” as well as the ways in which Mayfield slighted them, personally.
And then Mayfield, who closed out his time in Carolina with a career 30-35 record as a starter, got pulled off the street and immediately found himself playing in relief of John Wolford, Matthew Stafford’s backup for the Los Angeles Rams. On Thursday Night Football. For a Rams team that dropped six straight games. After one practice and watching Wolford conduct one three-and-out.
That’s not an ideal situation, and a poor performance would have confirmed Mayfield was still firmly on the road to being on the Mt. Rushmore of Busts (which, again, is a freebie idea for you aspiring money-launderers out there).
But Mayfield displayed the resilience we’ve come to know him for in Tampa Bay. In the fourth quarter, Mayfield led a 75-yard touchdown drive, then a two-minute drill that took LA 98 yards down the field, to lead his new team to a 17-16 win over the Las Vegas Raiders. Suddenly, the cocky jerk was an underdog, and his new coach had nothing but great things to say about his performance.
“What a quick study,” glowed AP NFL Coach of the Year winner Sean McVay. “He just got here five minutes ago and figured out a way to do some special things tonight.”
And now we’re here in Tampa, where Mayfield isn’t just a comeback story, but a likable one. A late season run into the playoffs was just the start. He somehow went from a football elitist to a disaster to the NFL everyman just out there giving it his all.
Mayfield has harnessed the competitive and aggressive attitude that so often shone poorly through his behavior, and pointed it in a good direction. The NFL nearly tore him down, but he rebuilt his attitude, his game, and his reputation. It’s easy to root for the guy now, and the journey to getting there is one of the weirdest and most satisfying stories in the league right now.
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