QB Impressions

[Direckshun]

First glances at several QBs we're going to give a shit about over the next four months. Feel free to set me straight.

DeShone Kizer, Notre Dame
6'4", 230 lbs
26-9 TD-INT, 59%, 2925 passing yards

I get a Cutlerian vibe from this guy. Seems to be built like a franchise QB. Powerful arm, some beautiful passes, perfect bodytype. But he is lacking an "it" factor, is he not? He's not a world-beating, overcome-the-odds, particularly spiriting QB. Looks like he could have an okay career in the NFL in which he wins nothing of consequence.

Mitch Trubisky, North Carolina
6'3", 220 lbs
30-6 TD-INT, 69%, 3748 passing yards

Well if there was one Andy Reid QB in this entire draft, it's Trubisky, isn't it? Super accurate, doesn't take too many risks with the ball, is very mentally tough and very athletic. He's a slam dunk for the Chiefs to trade up for, if he lasts to the 20s, but in a QB-starved NFL with at least 6 new head coaches looking for their QB, there's no chance he lasts to us.

[KChiefs1]

Buffalo moving up?

https://youtu.be/pLm18wBjWLA

[Tribal Warfare]

Josh Allen's biggest weakness? He's slow to respond to shifts in defenses, says @DanOrlovsky7. The former NFL QB explains why drafting Allen is a big risk, on @SI_PeterKing's podcast: https://t.co/esmNmtTVaK pic.twitter.com/GsluZuxJNb

— The MMQB (@theMMQB) April 5, 2018

[Sweet Daddy Hate]

Originally Posted by Tribal Warfare

Trash pick.

PERFECT for Eltard and BlowMo.

[BryanBusby]

Originally Posted by KChiefs1

Buffalo moving up?

https://youtu.be/pLm18wBjWLA

No chance they do not. That has been the gameplan since they gave us the slot to take Mahomes.

[KChiefs1]

Giants have come out & said they’d take Darnold at #2 if he’s there but otherwise it is probably Chubb or Barkley.

Makes me wonder if Rosen will be the QB that falls down draft this year.

[The Franchise]

Originally Posted by Tribal Warfare

Josh Allen's biggest weakness? He's slow to respond to shifts in defenses, says @DanOrlovsky7. The former NFL QB explains why drafting Allen is a big risk, on @SI_PeterKing's podcast: https://t.co/esmNmtTVaK pic.twitter.com/GsluZuxJNb

— The MMQB (@theMMQB) April 5, 2018

If the Browns draft this kid #1.....Dorsey hasn't learned shit. They'd be dumb to not take Darnold.

[KChiefs1]

Ball Velocity from NFL Combine from 2008 - 2018.

Ourlads’ Guide to the NFL Draft is the only source that gives the number for the quarterback’s velocity at the NFL Combine. Velocity is measured by a radar gun in miles per hour.

Spoiler!

A powerful passing arm gets attention and pro organizations salivate every year at the NFL Combine when the guys with the “big” guns take snaps. A quarterback builds a reputation for being a strong-armed passer early in his development. Football scouts will label a passer as a power-passer or weak-armed after viewing hours of game cut-ups and often via first-hand eyewitness experience, sitting in the stands and studying the athletes. Many of those labels are confirmed during the talent evaluation events, such as the NFL Combine or during the many Pro-Days that are held around the country. Ah, but it is in those staged testing grounds that some reputations of the rifle-armed are questioned while some of the reputed pop-gun passers surprise.

During the Combine one of the “measures” performed on quarterbacks is Ball Velocity. Passers, like baseball pitchers, are scanned by radar guns to get a gauge of how fast they actually can throw a football. Ball velocity on its own as an important test result carries some weight among the pro personnel evaluators, but how hard a QB can toss the rock isn’t a priority. When talking about the make-up of players’ skills most football fans can recite the 40-yard dash times, the bench press reps and even some of the cone-drill results. Yet ball velocity, a seemingly very attractive fact for football addicts gets little attention; even reporters, player agents and others associated with the quarterbacks tend to allow the actual measure slip into the shadows. Well, PASS turns a spotlight on Ball Velocity and exposes which quarterbacks really own cannon arms and, even more interesting, which passers may be carrying the “weak-arm” stamp undeservedly.


Dr. John Eric Goff, Professor of Physics at Lynchburg College and author of Gold Medal Physics: The Science of Sports, notes that the angle of the arm during delivery is key.

“Just as a simple example, say that a quarterback wants to throw a bomb, nearly 60 yards. The quarterback releases the ball at 50 mph with a release angle of 45 degrees, and the ball is caught at the same height at which it was thrown. The ball goes nearly 56 yards down the field in about 3.22 seconds if we ignore air resistance. A well-thrown spiral doesn’t have too much air resistance, so those numbers don’t change much when including the air. If you drop the arm a foot like in a sidearm throw, the range is just a tad over 49 yards and the time of flight is about 3.3 seconds. The conclusion of something like a 12 percent reduction in bomb distance is the new result, as long as one assumes the release speed has dropped 5 percent and the release angle has increased five degrees.” Dr. Goff concluded, “The time of flight is just under a tenth of a second longer, which might be enough for a corner to close a little gap that he couldn’t otherwise close.”

Today we still use “game tape” to gauge a quarterback’s ability to generate “heat”, but now we can confirm what the eye sees by measuring ball velocity with a JUGGS gun, or other speed-reading radar devices.

In an article posted on Livestrong.com (Maximum Speed of a Football, October 21, 2013 by Rogue Parrish) the speed at which past quarterbacks could spin the football was “largely anecdotal but indicate that the greatest quarterbacks had exceptional throwing speed.”

Mr. Parrish noted that Packer gunner Brett Favre was “estimated” at 63 mph. Now retired passing star and Hall-of-Famer-to-be Peyton Manning (pre-neck injury) could hit 59 on shorter throws. Saints’ QB Drew Brees was clocked at 52 MPH in a “Sports Science” segment for ESPN. Patrick Mahomes II hit 62 mph in an episode of Total Access for NFL Network. According to some, including former Bronco wideout Rod Smith, John Elway brought the greatest velocity to the field. It is said Elway ripped it consistently in the 60-plus MPH. “They used to set the Jugs machines at 70 to 80 mph for us receivers to simulate John’s throws,” recalls Elway’s former top pass catcher.

Here is a look at the results of NFL Combine velocity reads from 2008 to 2017. In some cases the perceived is reaffirmed, but a few surprising speed readings are popped by passers who just may have been mislabeled by more than a few football writers and profiling bloggers failing to pay attention. The list consists of quarterbacks and their Ball Velocity.

Have fun with the comparisons.

_________________________________________________
Top Velocity All-Time:

Name, College, – Ball Velocity in MPH:

Josh Allen, Wyoming,- 62
Logan Thomas, Virginia Tech, – 60
Patrick Mahomes II, Texas Tech, – 60
Baker Mayfield, Oklahoma,- 60
Josh Rosen, UCLA,-59
Davis Webb, California, – 59
Brandon Weeden, Oklahoma State, – 59
Colin Kaepernick, Nevada, - 59
Kirk Cousins, Michigan State, – 59
Zac Dysert, Miami (OH), - 59
Tyler Bray, Tennessee, – 59
Stephen Morris, Miami, – 59
Paxton Lynch, Memphis, – 59





Year: 2018
Austin Allen - Arkansas - 54
Josh Allen - Wyoming - 62
JT Barrett - Ohio State - 52
Kurt Benkert - Virginia - 56
Sam Darnold - Southern Cal - did not throw
Danny Etling - LSU - 56
Luke Falk - Washington State - 52
Riley Ferguson - Memphis - 54
Quinton Flowers - South Florida - 49
Lamar Jackson - Louisville - 49
Kyle Lauletta - Richmond - 52
Tanner Lee - Nebraska - 57
Chase Litton - Marshall - 55
Baker Mayfield - Oklahoma - 60
Josh Rosen - UCLA - 59
Mason Rudolph - Oklahoma State - 52
Nic Shimonek - Texas Tech - 55
Mike White - Western Kentucky - 55
Logan Woodside - Toledo - 52





Year: 2017
CJ Beathard, Iowa, 55
Joshua Dobbs, Tennessee 51
Jerod Evans, Virginia Tech 50
Brad Kaaya, Miami, 48
DeShone Kizer, Notre Dame, 52
Trevor Knight, Texas A&M, 55
Mitch Leidner, Minnesota, 53
Sefo Liufau, Colorado, 46
Patrick Mahomes II, Texas Tech, 60
Nathan Peterman, Pittsburgh, 49
Cooper Rush, Central Michigan, 45
Seth Russell, Baylor, 52
Mitch Trubisky, North Carolina, 51
Deshaun Watson, Clemson, 45
Davis Webb, California, 56





Year: 2016
Paxton Lynch, Memphis 59
Jared Goff, California 58
Carson Wentz, North Dakota State 57
Christian Hackenberg, Penn State 56
Joel Stave, Wisconsin 56
Jacoby Brissett, North Carolina State 56
Josh Woodrum, Liberty 56
Cody Kessler, Southern Cal 55
Brandon Allen, Arkansas 55
Trevone Boykin, TCU 55
Dak Prescott, Mississippi State 54
Nate Sudfeld, Indiana 54
Kevin Hogan, Stanford 53
Brandon Doughty, Western Kentucky 53
Vernon Adams, Oregon 53
Jeff Driskel, Louisana Tech 52
Connor Cook, Michigan State 50
Cardale Jones, Ohio State, Did not throw




Year: 2015
Bryan Bennett, SE Louisiana 60
Sean Mannion, Oregon State 57
Brandon Bridge, South Alabama 57
Marcus Mariota, Oregon 56
Anthony Boone, Duke 56
Jameis Winston, Florida State 55
Cody Fajardo, Nevada 55
Bryce Petty, Baylor 53
Brett Hundley, UCLA 53
Shane Carden, East Carolina 52
Jerry Lovelocke, Prairie View A&M 51
Nick Marshall, Auburn 50
Blake Sims, Alabama 42
Garrett Grayson, Colorado State, Did not throw
Connor Halliday, Washington State, Did not throw




Year: 2014
Logan Thomas, Virginia Tech 60
Stephen Morris, Miami 59
Tom Savage, Pittsburgh 57
Blake Bortles, Central Florida 56
Jimmy Garoppolo, Eastern Illinois 56
Jeff Mathews, Cornell 56
Keith Wenning, Ball State 56
Jordan Lynch, Northern Illinois 55
Tajh Boyd, Clemson 54
Bryn Renner, North Carolina 54
David Fales, San Jose State 53
AJ McCarron, Alabama 53
Dustin Vaughan, West Texas A&M 53
Connor Shaw, South Carolina 50
Teddy Bridgewater, Louisville – Did not throw
Derek Carr, Fresno State – Did not throw
Johnny Manziel, Texas A&M – Did not throw
Zach Mettenberger, LSU – Did not throw
Aaron Murray, Georgia – Did not throw





Year: 2013
Tyler Bray, Tennessee 59
Zac Dysert, Miami (OH) 59
James Vandenberg, Iowa 57
Ryan Nassib, Syracuse 56
Bradley Sorensen, Southern Utah 56
Geno Smith, West Virginia 55
Tyler Wilson, Arkansas 55
EJ Manuel, Florida State 54
Matthew Scott, Arizona 54
Landry Jones, Oklahoma 53
Collin Klein, Kansas State 52
Colby Cameron, Louisiana Tech 51
Marqueis Gray, Minnesota 51
Michael Glennon, North Carolina State 49
Matt Barkley, Southern Cal – Did not throw
Sean Renfree, Duke – Did not throw





Year: 2012
Brandon Weeden, Oklahoma State 59
Kirk Cousins, Michigan State 59
Austin Davis, Southern Mississippi 58
Nick Foles, Arizona 57
Chandler Harnish, Northern Illinois 57
Jordan Jefferson, LSU 57
Russell Wilson, Wisconsin 55
Casey Keenum, Houston 55
Patrick Witt, Yale 54
Darron Thomas, Oregon 53
Ryan Lindley, San Diego State 52
Kellen Moore, Boise State 52
Jacory Harris, Miami 50
Aaron Corp, Richmond 50
BJ Coleman, Tennessee-Chattanooga Did not throw
Robert Griffin III, Baylor Did not throw
Andrew Luck, Stanford Did not throw
Brock Osweiler, Arizona State Did not throw
Ryan Tannehill, Texas A&M Did not throw





Year: 2011
Colin Kaepernick, Nevada 59
Ryan Mallett, Arkansas 58
Patrick Devlin, Delaware 56
Andy Dalton, TCU 56
Cam Newton, Auburn 56
Scott Tolzien, Wisconsin 55
Nathan Enderle, Idaho 54
Jake Locker, Washington 54
TJ Yates, North Carolina 52
Christian Ponder, Florida St 51
Ricky Stanzi, Iowa 50
Tyrod Taylor, Va Tech 50
Greg McElroy, Alabama Did not throw
Blaine Gabbert, Missouri Did not throw






Year: 2010
Levi Brown, Troy 56
Colt McCoy, Texas 56 (Did not throw at Combine. Throw was recorded at a private workout with a Radar Gun & Computer Chip in Ball.
Max Hall, BYU 52
Tim Hiller, Western Michigan 52
Michael Kafka, Northwestern 52
Zac Robinson, Oklahoma St. 52
Jevan Snead, Mississippi 52
Sean Canfield, Oregon St. 51
Jarrett Brown, West Virginia 50
John Skelton, Fordham 50
Dan LeFevour, Central Michigan 49
Tony Pike, Cincinnati 49
Armanti Edwards, Appalachian St. 46.5
Sam Bradford, Oklahoma Did not throw
Jimmy Clausen,Notre Dame Did not throw
Jonathan Crompton, Tennessee Did not throw
Tim Tebow, Florida Did not throw




Year: 2009
John Wilson Parker, Alabama 58
Mike Reilly, Central Washington 58
Drew Willy, Buffalo 58
Mark Sanchez, Southern Cal 57
Josh Freeman, Kansas State 57
Chase Daniels, Missouri 57
Nate Davis, Ball State 56
Curtis Painter, Purdue 56
Rhett Bomar, Sam Houston State 55
Tom Brandstetter, Fresno State 53
Cullen Harper, Clemson 53
Stephen McGee, Texas A & M 53
Graham Harrell, Texas Tech 52
Pat White, West Virginia 52
Matt Stafford, Georgia Did not throw





Year: 2008
Paul Smith, Tulsa 57
Joe Flacco, Delaware 55
Kevin O’Connell, San Diego St 55
Brian Brohm, Louisville 53
Chad Henne, Michigan 53
Erik Ainge, Tennessee 52
John David Booty, Southern Cal 51
Matt Flynn, LSU 50
Josh Johnson, San Diego 49
Colt Brennan, Hawaii 44
Dennis Dixon, Oregon Did not throw
Matt Ryan, Boston College Did not throw
Andre Woodson, Kentucky Did not throw

[KChiefs1]

Jordan Palmer on the 2018 class.

https://youtu.be/SmedUWmrgq8

[KChiefs1]

Cowherd on arm strength vs accuracy.

Not a fan of his but this is interesting.

https://youtu.be/TWJxquZKG_Y

[kccrow]

Originally Posted by KChiefs1

Cowherd on arm strength vs accuracy.

Not a fan of his but this is interesting.

https://youtu.be/TWJxquZKG_Y

Yup. I wouldn't draft Josh Allen in round 7, much less top 7. But his comp for me isn't Jamarcus Russell, it's Christian Hackenberg.


Josh Allen:
27 g 365 comp 649 att 56.2% 5066 yds 7.8 avg 44 td 21 int

Christian Hackenberg:
38 g 693 comp 1235 att 56.1% 8457 6.8 avg 48 td 31 int

Similar completion %. Similar size. Similar issues against lesser competition. Slightly stronger arm but not mind-blowing because Hack still had legitimate NFL caliber arm strength (62 v. 56 mph during combine).

[Sweet Daddy Hate]

Peebag's mouth is my favorite urinal.

[KChiefs1]

Soul & Science on Josh Allen.

http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-networ...sh-Allen-throw

[KChiefs1]

Mayfield is an idiot.

https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/04/18/ba...t-quarterbacks


Baker Mayfield Doesn’t Have Time for Your No. 6 Pick.

Teammates and friends talk about the legend of Baker Mayfield as though he were forged from some alien metal and dropped to earth—a shining example for the little guy. To almost everyone who met him at Oklahoma, he’s Baker Mayfield, walk-on turned Heisman Trophy winner, a six-foot powder keg who slings it like Favre, trash-talks like Shaq, dances like Bruno . . . and might actually hail from Mars.

But they didn’t know him way back when—not back in Gina and James Mayfield’s kitchen in the suburbs of Austin, where 17-year-old Baker got up the nerve to tell his father that for college he intended to choose between Florida Atlantic and Washington State, the two so-so FBS football programs he’d gotten offers from. Those were the two schools that really liked him, and Mayfield longed to be desired, to have a chance to play.

“I didn’t get the offers I wanted,” he recalls, “and in my head I’m thinking: I deserve to not have to walk on.”

James, though, wasn’t having it; he told Baker he could do better. “You’ve always believed in yourself,” James said, “so why don’t you walk on somewhere you want to go?” The conversation transformed into a shouting match; the teenager stormed out of the house and paced through the neighborhood. Two hours later he came back home and decided he’d indeed try to walk on, at Texas Tech.

Spoiler!

“I was so frustrated. I almost took the easiest way out, and [my dad] kicked me in the rear. We had the biggest fight we’ve ever had,” Baker says. “He pushed me to chase my dream. I wouldn’t be here right now if he hadn’t done that.

Fourteen thousand, six hundred and seven passing yards later, Mayfield found himself at a Mexican restaurant in Hollywood, the Red O, huddling with an agent who was recommended by a handful of Sooners greats. Jack Mills handed him a sheet of paper detailing the compensation for each pick in the first round of last year’s draft. This was January, and most of the experts were pegging Mayfield as a mid-first-round selection. ESPN analyst Todd McShay, for one, had Mayfield at No. 19, to the Chargers. (Ultimately L.A. would end up with the 17th pick.) Mayfield took the paper and in ink drew a line underneath the No. 5 selection, held by the Broncos. “I’m not going later than this,” he said

In just five years Baker Mayfield has gone from a teenager who was ready to compromise on his dreams and become a Florida Atlantic Owl . . . to a 23-year-old football idol who firmly believes in his ability to will extraordinary things into happening. Along the way his eyes got big. Some will surely say his head did too.

At his pro day in Norman last month, Mayfield wore a crimson-and-cream Nike headband and a small medallion bearing a depiction of St. Christopher, known as the patron saint of athletes. The headband made the rounds on social media and drew giggling comparisons to Karate Kid protagonist Daniel LaRusso. One day before the workout, the Chargers—the team that McShay imagined drafting Mayfield in the second half of the first round—had asked him to go to lunch with a handful of staffers, including offensive coordinator Ken Whisenhunt. (The presence of all those Chargers employees was all the more flattering considering the timing: Free agency had just begun, and that’s typically an all-hands-on-deck day in NFL offices.) Before their lunch, the Chargers had given Mayfield a handful of plays to study and then dissect—an exercise he had excelled at with other teams.

Asked afterward, though, how he felt he’d performed in the Chargers meeting, Mayfield flashed a shade of vanity more often associated with LaRusso’s Karate Kid rival: cheap-shotting bad boy Johnny Lawrence. “I didn’t look at their playbook as much as a I should have,” Mayfield said. “It could have gone a little bit better . . . but at the same time, I’m prioritizing which playbooks I’m going to learn. No offense to them, but I’ve got a lot on my plate.”


It’s not so strange, during a week packed with interviews, that a draft prospect who’s likely to be selected in the top five—just as he promised—might prioritize a team with a high pick over one with a low pick. What is odd is that he would admit it. Out loud. With a recorder in front of him.

In the Manual of Modern Quarterbacking, authored by Tom Brady (foreword by Peyton Manning), telling it like it is would be just about as taboo as snoozing through a film session. Those close to Mayfield chalk up this brutal honesty to Baker being Baker, though there are key factors of his personal history to consider. For one, there was never a starter over Mayfield for him to look up to in college; he never watched a senior QB squirm under the media spotlight and deliver those boilerplate answers. Drew Brees watched and learned from Billy Dicken at Purdue; Ben Roethlisberger spent a redshirt year at Miami (Ohio) observing a guy named Mike Bath; at N.C. State, Russell Wilson redshirted while Daniel Evans started. But Mayfield took the reins at Tech immediately. (And how’s this for a start? He completed six of his first seven collegiate passes and threw four TDs in that win, the first of five straight before an injury.) After that he took Trevor Knight’s job at Oklahoma and led the Sooners for three seasons. In other words, it’s been The Baker Mayfield Show for some time now. He did it his way because it was the only way he knew.

That’s not to say he doesn’t listen. His camp—Mills and his partner-son, Tom; marketing agents Patrick Hayes and Lindsey Waterhouse; James, Gina and Baker’s older brother, Matt—has been successful in convincing Mayfield to stop antagonizing media members and Texas football commits on Twitter. (He still browses social media, still uses screenshots of offending tweets as motivation—it’s all fodder for the cameras on an upcoming Behind Baker documentary series.) And at the Senior Bowl in January, Mayfield finally met a QB he could look up to: former Jets and Dolphins starter Chad Pennington, who mentored prospects in Mobile and at the combine in Indianapolis, earning Mayfield’s respect through impartiality and sage advice. “We started talking about how he presents himself in the best light to make sure organizations really understand who he is,” Pennington says. “He’s secure with who he is. And I think, as evaluators, you have to be very careful about judging that as ‘not caring enough’ or ‘not being perceptive enough.’ ”

Here’s a relevant bit of Pennington’s advice to Mayfield and others of his ilk: Don’t blow off any team, regardless of its draft position. “Just because this team’s not going to be able to draft you, it doesn’t matter,” he says, “because you may be on this team four years from now. There are only 32, and they all matter.” (Mayfield’s meeting with the Chargers may be an indication that he’s not absorbing everything Pennington tells him.)

The day Pennington introduced himself to Mayfield’s North team at the Senior Bowl, the onetime NFL QB recited his cellphone number aloud, offering himself as a sounding board for any and all takers. Mayfield was interested but didn’t write down the digits. He didn’t have to. Two days later he recited them from memory, and the number checked out. “My dad thinks I have a photographic memory,” he says. “I’ve just always been able to remember that kind of thing.”

The Business of Baker Mayfield
Uniquely gifted, brazenly self-confident, motivated by perceived slights—all of this reminds one former NFL quarterback of his own personal downfall. Ryan Leaf, the No. 2 pick in 1998 by the Chargers (and an undeniable bust, having finished his pro career with 14 touchdowns and 36 interceptions), went on the Ballers with Babies podcast in March and aired his concerns about Mayfield. “The biggest thing for me will be how he deals with failure,” Leaf said. “That’s where my downfall was, when things began to fall apart. . . . When the media is on you, you play a bad game, your whole city is on you, that’s where we’ll see where Baker Mayfield is at. Right now there’s no evidence to back up that, when things get tough, he won’t break.”

Go back to 1998. Scott Goldman and Jim Bowman had just finished up their sports psychology degrees, and they were searching for a niche in an expanding field when they learned that the Wonderlic test, originally developed in the 1930s as a tool to evaluate entry-level applicants at a consumer-loan provider, was the only intelligence test being administered to prospects at the NFL combine. Not only is the Wonderlic based off a now-80-year-old theory, says Goldman, but “it’s language-dependent, and it has socioeconomic and cultural biases. So we spent years looking at all the forms of intelligence and cognitive abilities that impact unsolvable puzzles.”

In 1998, Leaf, who would fizzle out after just four seasons in the league, scored a 27 out of 50. That same year Manning, the NFL’s career leader in passing yardage, scored a 28. Leaf, by his own admission, struggled with the mental aspect of the game early in his career, and the subsequent criticism crippled him with self-doubt. As Goldman and Bowman watched Leaf’s career implode, they worked in the background on a test that might better predict a young player’s football aptitude. They sought to eliminate cultural and language biases and evaluate a handful of intelligence traits that translated directly to athletics, like the brain’s processing speed and its ability to recall information or adapt to shifting circumstances. They called their new test the AIQ (Athletic Intelligence Quotient), and they found a positive correlation between players with high scores and those who made early, meaningful contributions on the athletic field.

“Sign
The AIQ has since been administered to more than 4,000 athletes across the major American sports leagues, including the NFL, which first adopted the test at the 2012 combine for a limited number of players and now tests everyone in Indy. Today two teams subscribe fully to the testing service (while a handful of others buy reports on certain players). One of those two teams already has its franchise quarterback. The other team is not a perennial winner; its pick is in the top half of the first round this year. It’s also one of the teams most interested in drafting Mayfield. Asked about the performance of specific players, Goldman declines to comment—but he does acknowledge that a ’18 QB prospect scored in the top 100 of all athetes ever to take the AIQ, and that this passer notched the second-highest score of the 63 QBs who have taken the test. Two league sources confirmed that this player was indeed Mayfield.

So what? you might ask. Ryan Fitzpatrick—Harvard, Class of 2005—scored a near-perfect 48 out of 50 on the Wonderlic, and he’s been nothing more than an average NFL starter. Mayfield’s test scores make an interesting data point, but teams looking at him would be better off concentrating on how he was asked to use his mind in Oklahoma’s offense, where his mental aptitude translated to a role of elevated responsibility compared to the typical Air Raid QB.

But let’s back up. The Air Raid, particularly prevalent across college football over the past 15-odd years, is a variation on the spread offense. It emphasizes passing and tempo, simplifies playcalling and lengthens the splits between lineman so as to increase the distance between edge rushers and the quarterback, who is usually asked to make simple reads and quick throws. A good number of Air Raid passers have put up prolific passing numbers in college, but typically they’ve been slow to adapt to the pro game (Case Keenum) or bombed entirely (Tim Couch, Brandon Weeden, Geno Smith).

NFL Mock Draft Vol. 4: The Giants Hold the Key—To Draft or Not to Draft a Quarterback?
NFL coaches who are skeptical of Mayfield’s Teammates and friends talk about the legend of Baker Mayfield as though he were forged from some alien metal and dropped to earth—a shining example for the little guy. To almost everyone who met him at Oklahoma, he’s Baker Mayfield, walk-on turned Heisman Trophy winner, a six-foot powder keg who slings it like Favre, trash-talks like Shaq, dances like Bruno . . . and might actually hail from Mars.

But they didn’t know him way back when—not back in Gina and James Mayfield’s kitchen in the suburbs of Austin, where 17-year-old Baker got up the nerve to tell his father that for college he intended to choose between Florida Atlantic and Washington State, the two so-so FBS football programs he’d gotten offers from. Those were the two schools that really liked him, and Mayfield longed to be desired, to have a chance to play.

“I didn’t get the offers I wanted,” he recalls, “and in my head I’m thinking: I deserve to not have to walk on.”

James, though, wasn’t having it; he told Baker he could do better. “You’ve always believed in yourself,” James said, “so why don’t you walk on somewhere you want to go?” The conversation transformed into a shouting match; the teenager stormed out of the house and paced through the neighborhood. Two hours later he came back home and decided he’d indeed try to walk on, at Texas Tech. role in such a system have heard Lincoln Riley’s message loud and clear: Don’t be. Baker had “more responsibility here than he would have with any NFL team,” says Mayfield’s Oklahoma coach in 2017. “Some [Air Raid offenses have someone] hold up a board on the sideline telling everybody what to do—[that QB] doesn’t have any communication responsibilities. But [Baker played] a larger hand here, a pivotal role.

“Mentally, he’s the best one I’ve ever been around—and I’ve been around some good ones. There’s not a guy who can walk in and process what this guy can process. That’s not gonna be an issue at the next level, regardless of the system or amount of verbiage.”

Mayfield’s intelligence, Riley explains, allowed OU to make weekly adjustments and install new concepts that would have been impossible with anybody else. “You show something to him once,” says Riley, “he runs it two or three times over the course of the week, and he’s got it down. We were able to adjust so much from week to week because of him. I always had confidence that if I presented it the right way, he would run with it.” Week to week, but also moment to moment. At the OU football facility in Norman, Riley dials up one play on video, against Oklahoma State last fall, where the QB’s adjustment saved his skin: OSU is threatening a six-man pressure with a free blitzer creeping up to attack the gap between the right guard and tackle; Mayfield recognizes this and steps toward his line to change the protection. The line slides right and OU’s running back moves from Mayfield’s right hip to his left, putting the right tackle on the blitzer and adjusting the strength to where Mayfield wanted to go with the ball. In the end, says Riley, “It’s the difference between a 10-yard completion and an 80-yard touchdown.”

Riley was Mayfield’s offensive coordinator for two seasons under Bob Stoops before taking over the Sooners’ head job in 2017. Together coach and QB climbed to 12–1, No. 2 in the nation, before losing 54–48 to Georgia in the semifinal of the college football playoff this past New Year’s Day. But all that success came with a few headaches. Mayfield taunted Kansas with a crotch grab and planted an OU flag at midfield after a road win over Ohio State. Before the season he was arrested for attempting to flee police officers who were questioning him about an altercation near a food truck. (Remember our Manual of Modern Quarterbacking? Running from the police sits atop the list of no-nos.)

Yet Riley reports back that teams haven’t seemed too preoccupied with the high-profile missteps when they’ve consulted him about his old QB. They’ve wanted to know more about Baker’s personality, how he practiced and how quickly he learned. In other words: On a scale of Ryan Leaf to Peyton Manning, where does Baker Mayfield fall?

“He wins the job as a walk-on freshman at Texas Tech. He beats out a bunch of other good players despite having no experience in the offense here at Oklahoma,” says Riley. “He’s always been able to [adapt] to new situations and win over teammates and master schematically what you want him to pretty quick. I don’t think there’s anything they’re gonna put in front of him that he can’t handle.”

Before the Heisman and the Big 12 leap of faith and that argument in the kitchen, there was the Aha! moment, says Gina Mayfield, who believes she can track the birth of Baker vs. the World to a specific point. This was 2011, and Gina had driven her son to Dallas for an Elite 11 regional camp run by former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer. Even as a casual fan of the sport, she could tell something was off that day. “We were naïve,” Gina says. “These guys that everybody was touting and trying to recruit, he was side-by-side with them, and he beat them—and it didn’t get portrayed [by the scouting websites] that way. We felt [that camp] was designed for certain people to be propped up. It made Baker aware. That was one of those moments where you say: What I’m capable of may not be what they say. I’m pretty sure I can do this.”

“I could throw then just like I can throw now,” says Mayfield, “and [these experts] sat there and ooh’d and aah’d over these other guys. That was the first qualifying camp for Elite 11—and the last one I ever went to.”

It was a moment that James Mayfield would build on later when it came time for his son to decide where to go to college. Just remember how wrong they all were back then. They’re wrong now too. After some convincing, Baker walked on at Texas Tech and won the starting job; then he fell out with the coaching staff and walked on at Oklahoma. He spent hours diving into a new playbook, sneaking into Memorial Stadium at night to visualize and walk through plays on the Bermuda grass.

“He came in believing he was the guy,” says linebacker Ogbonnia Okoronkwo, who was a Sooners sophomore when Mayfield arrived in 2015. “At first people were like, Huh? But he earned the respect so fast. . . . On the first day, it looked like he’d played with those receivers for 10 years. When we got back in the locker room, all the receivers were like, That’s the guy I want.”

It should come as no surprise: Mayfield, whose 2016 and ’17 seasons rank No. 1 and No. 2 all time in the NCAA (by a wide margin) for passer rating, believes that if anybody can turn around the 0–16 Browns, owners of the No. 1 and No. 4 picks in this year’s draft, he can. The legend doesn’t rest on its laurels. It has to be groomed, built upon and, above all, defended. There is no doubting Baker Mayfield. If you do, history says you’ll come to regret it. You may even hear about it from the man himself.


• THE BAKER MAYFIELD SCOUTING REPORT: Catch up on Robert Klemko’s weekly series diving into Mayfield’s pre-draft experience


Last fall, after the flag-planting and the crotch-grabbing, one media member tweeted out that Mayfield would be of no interest to an NFL team given that sort of behavior. The QB took a screenshot and stored it on his phone. He’d look at it when he worked out, friends say, for motivation. Then, in March, as it became clear that his would be one of the first names called at the draft in Dallas, he tracked down that media member’s phone number and sent him the screenshot.

“Who’s this?” the recipient asked.

“Someone who’s going to text you on April 26.”

[Sweet Daddy Hate]

And ghey. Don't forget the ghey.

And overrated.

And untalented.

And a perfect Bronco.

[Chief Northman]

Originally Posted by Claysexual

And ghey. Don't forget the ghey.

And overrated.

And untalented.

And a perfect Bronco.

Heh.

Mayfield’s ghey mug needs superimposing on the ghey prancing Bronco fan meme.