DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Baker

Even Stevie Wonder can see that Baker has a strong arm.

Yeah, if anything his problem is throwing the ball too hard causing some of those dropped passes/deflections.

Good post, Pit.

DC, thanks for your post, as well. Dude has talent. It's now about refining it.

GM....... thanks, that was funny.

Yep, Baker does throw the shorter passes sometimes way harder than needed and often slightly behind his WR's, but those same WR's, who manage to get both hands on the ball, should make the catch.

As far as Baker's arm strength, I'm not worried about that, his arm is plenty good enough to win with. The one issue that bothers me is all the batted balls, not much can be done about his height though.

7 of Baker's 11 interceptions have gone off of his wide receivers' hands. Those INTs are mostly bad luck or WR error. Browns are 3-3 or 4-2 without that.

The hand-wringing over Baker by people who seem to be regurgitating the same things I hear from sports jocks and talking heads is pretty mind-boggling. Baker didn't go from a walk-on who was one of the most accurate and efficient QBs in CFB history who then tested off the charts on the whiteboard to a one-read, inaccurate scrub who refuses to work with self described QB gurus out of hubris and laziness.

I just hope Baker doesn't share your attitude and is willing to work w/a QB coach and on the mental part of the game this upcoming off-season. I actually hope is becomes somewhat humbled and decides to do everything in his power to improve himself instead of blaming others like you are doing.

We can say that passes went off of receivers hands for interceptions and put all the blame on the receiver. But, take that pass to Landry at the end of the first half. Did Landry touch it. I think he did. But, so did the defender and the pass was high and behind Landry. Blaming Landry for that pick is nonsense.

I'm going to be blunt. I get the feeling that a lot of folks get upset if Baker is questioned, but have no problem w/bashing everyone else. That is unfair. It is also not wise. The players and coaches are in-tune w/such messages. That is not good for a locker room. Hell, it's not good for Baker. I don't see him blaming others.

This team has a multitude of areas where it can get better. However, this is a Baker thread and he can get better, too. I have already touched on the mechanics issues he can work on in the off-season. I will get to the mental part soon.

11 out 11 interceptions were thrown by Baker.

the question should be... what could he have done better to no have 7 out off 11 passes go off the hands of his WR's. our WR's hands are not Dennis Dropcutt's hands. We have very sure-handed WR's on our team.

Correct. The qb always gets the int. stat.

How many of those int's went into, and out of, the receivers hands?


Does BAker get blamed for receivers fumbles also?

I am concerned about Baker's accuracy, his happy feet and throwing with poor mechanics compared to last year.

The interceptions? A by product of the accuracy issues to be sure. But I don't look at the interceptions as the issue - the issue is accuracy. . . . I don't look at his number of interceptions and say the problem is worse of better than it is. If Baker had 5 interceptions this year instead of 11 - we are in the same place. Arguing over whose fault they are misses the point.

1. If the balls that hit hands were not intercepted ... there would STILL be a problem.

2. Baker is aggressive and has been throwing balls aggressively in catch up mode in a couple games. 3 in the very first game of the season. Other QB's worried about their stats might have not thrown those balls ... I'll take that willingness Baker has to have crappy stats while trying to win as a positive .... (I'll take the HC trying to score twice in a minute and a half at the end of a half where we are winning as a negative that will probably impact Baker's int's)

I didn't think of that while posting, but very good call! I think the feet and tendency to leave the pocket are from a justifiable lack of faith in his line.

Some people can't stand how badly they missed on Baker and are going to be pulling for him to fail, trying to convince others of deficiencies that don't exist. The kind of people who want to fight him without having ever met him, I assume.

Speaking of which...


Strawman. I never said he didn't need to improve.

Welcome to the board.

Thank you, that's mighty kind! Gotta say, as long as I've been lurking, I've come close to registering a few times after reading your posts, hahaha. You finally got me with this thread! I'll probably mostly go back to lurking, tbh. Don't wanna disrupt the ecosystem here.

Stick around puss ... good to see you register

Watching Baker's 11 interceptions, I'm not sure many were due to inaccurate throws. Maybe 2?

A handful were thrown into tight coverage and tipped.
One was thrown off the back foot the final play of the game.
I think a couple were put where he thought they needed to be, but didn't see the defender.
The 49ers game he was being hit on one throw. The other two throws were mistakes by the receiver. Callaway should have caught the ball and Hilliard was in the wrong spot.

Do I think he had a few errant passes? For sure. There are some who think he's had happy feet and mechanical issues prior to us drafting him. I do not believe that's an issue here.

Reading this thread, some would have you believe that Baker is playing in the worst situation in the league. His coach can't scheme. His receivers are drop-happy. His OL stinks. His receivers can't run good routes.

I wonder how many other NFL QBs would not want to play w/the talent that Baker has at his disposal? We went from saying we had the most talent in the league to being trash.

I think some folks are putting one player above the team.

Alright, I didn't get too many responses on what Baker can do to fix some of what ails him. I'll post my thoughts about what Baker can do to help Baker, rather than what everyone else can do.

I talked about the mechanical things earlier. I do think he generally has good mechanics, but he has a tendency to open his lead foot too wide and that hurts accuracy. He might overstride at times. And he throws off of his back foot. I do think working w/a qb coach in the off-season will help there.

The other part of his game that I would like to see him work on is the mental part of the game. I don't think Baker is ever going to be R. Wilson, Mahomes, or Watson. He isn't that kind of athlete.

Thus, I think he should emulate Drew Brees. Watch a ton of tape on how Brees finds open throwing lanes, how he buys time in the pocket w/out going crazy back there. How he reads defenses pre- and post-snap. How he understands a team's tendencies as much as they do. Reach out to him and pick his brain.

I would watch a ton of games of not only my own games to see where I struggled at reading coverages, but also of other qbs who fared well against the same teams/schemes.

I would then move to watching video of a defense pre-snap and predict which coverage they will play post-snap. I would identify my top reads in order of progressions to beat that particular defense. And I would do that over and over and over.

I think Baker is intelligent. I think he has the moxie. I think he has the arm. I think he can be a very good qb, but he is going to have to work on the mental part of the game. I also think that he can clean up his mechanics a bit, too. But, the mental part is the number one thing.

I think his success--and the team's success--center around just how much work Baker is willing to put in this upcoming off-season and then every year after that.

My 2 cents...

I think Baker needs a good platform to be successful, he does not have the raw natural talent like Deshaun, Darnold, Mahomes,Brees, Josh, Aaron, etc who can throw efficiently from non stable platforms

He's more a technique QB, if that makes sense, so when he is moving he's processing a lot of stuff and not playing instinctively. He's paying attention to his platform and to the play... and he's struggling...

I started by thinking that Kitchens was to blame somehow, by going air raid and designing plays that take more time to develop, but now I'm not so sure.

I think Kitchens was expecting for D's to adjust to Baker and take our the easy completions,so he had to change the Offense, and actually made in simpler by going vertical.

Critical for Baker's success is starting to make the screen passes, to take pressure off him. Making D's pay for blitzing him... that's, IMHO, going to be the key for success in the short run.

Contrary to what Vers sees, IMHO, Baker's arm is, again IMHO, limited... it by no means bad, but he's range is the intermediate game, between the numbers.

Reading this thread others would have you believe Baker is a noodle armed bust who has been outplayed by Daniel Jones (or was it Rudolph Mason?). Based on other threads some would have you believe Baker is a classless malcontent who shoots his mouth off and is always commentating on other player's business and gets players fired and has the power to choose the coaching staff.

See how that works?

At this moment in time he is one of the worst QBs in the league...


And from what I read there are really very few posters that go that way, most of us believe Baker can turn this around.

Regarding the noodle arm, I never said he had a noodle arm,just that his arm is not elite, which is evident.

Sugarcoating this is absurd...

This is a good place to look at stats if you are interested. You can click on different stats to see how the QBs compare. Items such as Time to Throw, Aggressiveness, Expected Completion Percentage, Actual Comp Percentage, +/= on Comp. Percentage, etc. There is a glossary if you don't know all the terms.

https://nextgenstats.nfl.com/stats/passing#average-time-to-throw

Who is sugar coating it? Who hasn't said Baker needs to improve?

And my post you responded to was an example of what Vers did in his post and served it back to him.... if you take one or two extreme comments and then say "according to some" you can say some pretty inflammatory comments. It's not helpful.

Does anyone want to comment on my wishes for what Baker can do this offseason to improve? Did anyone find the link to NexGen Stats helpful?

If only that were true. Baker's ball placement thus far has been awful. That pass to Hillard at the end of the game for example, now way he was going to be able to catch that. Mayfield threw the ball behind him and had a ton of juice on the ball, no way your going to catch that pass, even OBJ wouldn't be able to catch that ball. Hilliard tried to stop by jumping and turning his body to try and catch it but couldn't hold on to it with how poorly thrown it was.

OBJ had many balls thrown behind him, and the INT in the endzone he threw to Landry in triple coverage was a pass he had no business even attempting.

Look, I hope Mayfield figures it out because even thought im not a fan of Mayfield, I don't care who the QB is anymore as long as he is decent and wins us games I simply don't care. Right now Mayfield isn't even playing up to backup quality QB...a 66 QBR is atrocious...he has 25 INTs since last year the most in the league by a large margin in that span...he has 11 this year in what 6 games?

I really hope he figures things out and soon. There is too much talent on this team for us to suck the way we have so far...even average mid 80's QBR level of play has us sitting at 4-2 right now. We won't win many games this year if Mayfield continues playing the way he has thus far.

Our OL is giving him 3 seconds to throw on most plays which is more than Tom Brady gets most of the time, what more do you want from your line...Mayfield either runs into sacks or scrambles, he won't step up in the pocket when he has one. He still has a lot to learn, hopefully he learns fast or its going to be a long year.

I agree with his off-season needs.

I can give him a bit of a pass. That 1st year is long for a rookie with all-star games and combine prep. It's basically 2 years without any real time off. Add in he got married.

I don't think there is much doubt he wasn't in real good condition heading in to the season. Looked like he added 10 lbs of non muscle. He is just now dropping that.

He needs to get back to Cleveland more to sit with the coaches in the off season. He needs to dedicate some time to watch film...with someone who knows what they are looking at. I am not looking for 4 hours a day 6 days a week, but a few hours a day, maybe 3 days a week isn't too much to expect.

As for workouts, that is a 10.5 month a year deal. Take the month after the season to allow the body and mind to rest. Then maybe 2 weeks off between mini camps and regular training camp.

I disagree w/you on the pass to Hilliard. That should have been caught. It wasn't a great pass, but it wasn't that bad.

I also think he improved his pocket presence against Seattle. You could tell he wasn't rolling to the right as much. That's progress.

I didn't make this thread to either bash or defend Baker. It was more about identifying some of the things he needs to work on and how to fix those issues.

We aren't giving up on the guy. He is our qb. He has talent. So, in my mind........defending him by blaming others does no good and needlessly trashing him does no good, either.

Identify where he needs to improve and then think of strategies to improve. Progressive thinking.

I agree ... the pass to Hilliard (and Callaway at SF) was catchable and needed to be caught.

Baker HAS shown some progress in terms of hanging in the pocket ... just as FK has shown some progress as a HC IMO ... it’s just the fact that we’re going to be 2-5 and have very little margin for error moving forward

You don't know we will be 2-5. But that isn't my real point here.

It plays out how it plays out. I was as guilty as anybody, but maybe our expectations were a little high. Maybe we win the division, maybe we don't. We can still have a good season if we don't.

Thanks for talking about how Baker can improve. I agree w/you about taking some time away from the game, but still making time the off-season about learning.

I really can't emphasize enough how important I think it is for him to work on the mental side of it. The intricacies of playing qb. Making the reads, understanding tendencies, moving the safety and LBers w/your eyes. Moving quickly from one read to your next. I wonder if Brees would be willing to share some of his insights w/Baker? He seemed to have some nice things to say about him before last year's game.

Number one on my checklist for Baker would be...

1. Contact Drew Brees. Agree to be live in nanny for the summer. Watch the kids during the day, train with Brees at night. For as long as it takes.

I think that Baker's biggest issue is with his feet. When he sets his feet properly, he can hit a rocket in stride. When he throws off a poor base .... well .... we have seen what happens there.

I am also curious to see if he figures out some things when he was sitting out a practice, and watching/working with the receivers.

I tend to agree with this. I also think there is a time/trust/understanding thing with his WR's that needs to develop. He threw so many passes last year before cuts were made and before Wr's were looking for the ball and I have not seen much of that yet this year.

I think some folks are using Baker as a single-point scapegoat to cover up other deficiencies... just as others are using Freddie as a single-point scapegoat...

To start, we aren't trash.. we are inconsistent, we have made mistakes.. but at times, what this offense could be, what it will be, has been very visible...

That is very interesting. I'd say at this point in the season Baker has gone the wrong way a bit more than Brees did - but an interesting trend.

I think you are getting little response because I think most agree with your suggestions. I think what you've suggested makes perfect sense...from way, way outside looking in.

However, we don't know what Baker did or didn't do this off-season. Maybe he identified a few things to work on and did just that. Maybe even at the suggestion of Lincoln Riley or Freddie. Who knows?

He made about six commercials and got married. That surely did not consume more than about six weeks (off-and-on at that) of his off-season - Jan to May let's say sixteen weeks before OTAs. He is noticeably thicker, so he worked on his body during that time. Freddie suggested that he get away from football for a bit.

I have no problem with your suggestions but I'm not Baker...and if I were, I STILL might not take you up on those suggestions. One thing for certain, he's always been praised as a competitive, hard-worker.

There is a lot of talk out there on Browns fans boards about just how helpful Zampese (QB Coach) was to Baker on the mental/prep side of things. A lot. I don't know how helpful Lindley is to Baker...but the Zampese thing has legs all over the place.

It has been a point of discussion how difficult our early season schedule is... well, here are the rankings of the pass defenses we've played, their QB rating allowed on the season, and Bakers rating against them..

2 49ers - 62.5 - 13.4
9 Jets - 85.6 - 83.6
10 Seahawks - 86.3 - 54.9
11 Titans - 86.4 - 64
12 Ravens - 86.5 - 102.4
17 Rams - 90.9 - 64

A few things.. it's clear that Baker is underperforming compared to his peers since in all but one game, his rating was lower than their season average. Poor completion %, too many INTs, too few TDs.. obvious recipe for a crappy rating (and for losing games)

Also of note, the Rams are barely below the midpoint.. every other team we've played is a top half pass defense..

More bad news? rated #1, #3, and #6 are the Patriots, Bills, and Broncos respectively... our next three games. Assuming the ratings don't change, we will have played 8 of the top 12 pass defenses in the NFL in our first 9 games.... based on QB rating allowed...

That's freaking brutal for a young team trying to find itself and its identity...

So, this thread is telling me that Baker is fat?

Offseason is a long ways away. He has to get there, first.

I think he can improve things a little just by first getting on the same page with Kitchens. It seems to me that they're adjusting the offense quite a bit between weeks. IMO, nothing can happen until they start to nail down what they want to be on O this season.
Then, Baker can work with his pass-catchers and get more in sync with them. I think Baker has accuracy issues, and he/we relies ALOT on the catching ability of OBJ and Landry. We need to try to fix that as much as we can. We're not going to fix his inconsistent accuracy until the offseason at the earliest, but the QB and WRs can get a bit more acclimated to each other.