DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Baker Mayfield Part VII: The Dawg Awakens

Again - please let me know which posters anywhere on any planet think Baker has played well consistently since his shoulder got hurt? Provide any quotes you like.

I'm not quite sure what set of factors they use to measure a drop. But it's certainly the same measurement for all teams. And I certainly don't disagree with you that we pass less than a lot of teams. We actually rate 10th in the highest running team in football. But then we sometimes hear people saying we should run more. Another thing that causes us to pass less than some other teams is that we can't sustain drives. All one needs to do is look at how few points we've scored to see that our offensive snaps are pretty low. My only real point here is that as much as people focus on drops when talking about problems in the passing game, it's not as often or quite the critical problem some are making it out to be. We did have a lot of drops in one game. But it hasn't been some persistent issue some try to make it out to be.

To point out what I mean about sustaining drives which adds plays which would increase our passing attempts, I give you this. It's the average offensive snaps per game. We rank 27th.

https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/plays-per-game

So you're saying he didn't play well in the first half of the Baltimore game? Hell, even as one sided as you claim I am, even I gave him credit for that. You don't? I never mentioned "consistently". That's something you just threw in there. But did you see any indication those injuries hampered his performance in the first half of the Baltimore game"? Because I sure didn't. But as soon as he becomes bad Baker it's made out to be an issue.

I'm not sure what you are referring to.

1. You seemed to imply you think some posters think Baker is exempt from criticism because of the list Purple put him in. Surely that means they think he's played well over the last 10+ games since he was injured? or do you think posters know Baker has played badly but give him a free pass?

2. I said "Show me anyone, anywhere that said Baker didn't play as well in the second half of the Ravens game because of injury." ..... Where or when do you think I implied Baker didn't play well in the first half? And please feel free to provide any indication of anypne suggesting his 2nd half versus the Ravens this week was affected by injury.

That's not anything close to what I said and you know that. But you did a great job of defecting and refusing to answer why an injured Baker played so well in the fist half and so badly in the second half. I expect you will continue doing that. When he plays bad you and others use his injuries as a reason for it. Yet when he played well in the last game you never mention that the injuries had zero impact on his play. Seems as though it's used as a convenient excuse when needed.

Pit - you are twisting and misrepresenting all sorts of things. Or we just aren't on the same page. Which is happening a lot on Baker. Let's try to get on the same page even if we disagree.

I never said Baker played well or badly because of injury in the latest game. My only "injury" comment regards the Ravens game was in the post game thread, where I said Baker looked healthier and was rolling out and more mobile, a good sign. . . . You DID state today that posters have claimed the second half performance this weekend was due to injury ... which I have not seen anywhere. Once again - feel free to correct me if I missed it.

Additionally - YOU are the one saying he played 'so badly' in the second half vs Ravens. You have stated that many times quoting a 42% completion rate and no points. . . . I said, I re-watched the game and Baker played decent in the second half. Statistics alone do not tell you what happened and why. I recommend you re-watch the game. If you see throws and decisions by baker that are "so bad" - point them out. Otherwise we need to stop discussing the 2nd half performance - it is not a debate if one person is talking about what they SEE and the other simply refers to statistics. That conversation is not viable.

In this last post you claim the injury is a convenient excuse ... I think it was a reality that has influenced his play - physically and mentally, since week 3 onwards. I think he finally looks like he's getting closer to "healthy". I think there were games while he was injured that he flat out sucked and was worse than any time as an NFL QB. I said if I was KS I would have sat him and I don't know why we didn't. I also said that in addition to the injury there are other issues ongoing. . . . feel free to disagree, but provide some details instead of erroneous claims and generalizations about what you think posters said.

And, if we're going to be honest here, we were all hyping it up based on:

• OBJ being the #1, and playing like one
• Landry being Landry, and the perfect #2 to OBJ
• DPJ not having to be anything but our #3
• Higgins locking down the #4 spot, based on the history of just producing that Higgins has.
• Schwartz, Felton, and all of the others being filler that spells the top-producing talent we had starting

Instead:

• OBJ missed the start of the season
• OBJ never produced and flaked out; "played" himself out of CLE and was apparently working on doing so for a LONG TIME
• Landry missed time with MCL and other injuries
• OBJ & Landry never even saw the field together until what... Week 8?
• DPJ is now having to be our #1, and he isn't entirely rising to the occasion.
• Higgins is a mystery.
• Schwartz, Felton, and all of the others are having to take on much larger roles than they should be.

If you can't honestly look at the difference between what we all thought we had and what we're trotting out there right now, then will never understand.
This isn't a group that will scare a middle-of-the-road defense; they'll respect it as far as they need to, but they aren't going to be worried or heavily scheming for them. At all. We can pick on weaker secondaries, but there isn't a single guy in there that *demands* a double-team. Landry will get a defense's respect, as will DPJ, but none are going to be overly worried about either.... especially not when we're trotting out 3-TE sets over and over and over, again.


As for your rant about people refusing to jump on the Bash Baker Bandwagon that you're driving, it's because we've ALL seen Baker perform so much better than this offense is right now and we're actually trying to understand the Why of this offense NOT running smoothly like that this year. He didn't simply unlearn how to do the things we've all seen him do successfully, repeatedly. Blaming the everything on him simply doesn't make sense especially when it is pointed out over and over that a number of the failings of this offense aren't his fault. Blindly just saying "omg, Bak3r suxz" and not being able to actually articulate the Why is really just disingenuous, at best, and at this point it really just highlights that it seems you're just Hellbent on WANTING Baker to suck. That's not good enough for most of us. Most of us want to understand Why and get it fixed because what we want most is to NOT throw the baby out with the bathwater just because this thing is struggling and it's too much work to try to understand and fix more than a single perceived point of failure. We are past the tearing down and rebuilding phase, and we are NOT going back to that. Madden-inspired daydreams of bringing in some other QB that you think is a magical panacea to fix all our woes is just plain silly. Yes, Baker has his issues, for sure, but they aren't of the sort that you jettison him and bring in a whole new set of issues. There are LEGITIMATE issues breaking this offense, and some of them begin with the coach. Others ARE this OLine, no matter how much you want to play it down and ignore it. Those tackles are NOT doing well, especially lately. They are NOT blowing open holes for the RBs. They ARE giving up constant edge pressure and getting inside gaps blown up. These WRs ARE NOT the fearsome group we thought we had at the beginning of the year. This scheme is NOT doing all of the things we've seen bring us so much success in the past. We are NOT running it well, at all, and haven't for weeks. With that, we are NOT running Play Action or rollouts with the success we used to enjoy. Defenses ARE loading the box, but we AREN'T flipping to a more spread, WR-based offense to get them out of the box, and it's largely because of those OTs not holding up and those WRs not getting open when we do try it. The coach IS going ultra-conservative in the second halves of games because he is in love with burning the clock at the expense of just getting first downs. So, we're stuck in a rut of TE-Heavy sets and can't run well out of them. Baker still has his issues, too, but ALL of this here are real things that are wrong, too. These are NOT excuses. These are problems that exist. I'm sorry that you cannot use them as reasons to blame Baker, but all of them are real things that are NOT his fault and separate from him, and they need to be understood if you are to have any hope in Hell of seeing what IS wrong with Baker and whether or not it is something that is fixable and can be lived with.



Now, I wanted this next part to be in a separate post, but I may as well put it here. This is a more general thought and not directed at anyone, but more of a discussion feeder for everyone. It is a thought that occurred to me last night/this morning and it *may* explain a lot. It may explain nothing. I have no clue, whatsoever, how much of it bears out, and it could have nothing to do with anything, but there are some things that we know for certain:

Stefanski runs, essentially, the very same offense that Gary Kubiak and Mike Shannahan created. It is based off of the West Coast Offense.
From an article on DawgByNature:

So, we're in the WCO, of sorts.
Back when Favre was playing and Rodgers was riding the pine, and even in the past times we've attempted to bring the WCO here, there were a ton of posts over and over again on how the WCO "takes about three years to master". Rodgers got those years while sitting behind Favre, Garcia got to sit behind Young who got to sit behind Montana; but Baker is doing them in Year 3 & 4 while playing.
Are we just being fans in the middle of the process that maybe isn't going super smooth because of all of the other ancillary issues we're having?

Why this hadn't occurred to me before, I don't know, but.... in addition to all of the other crap we're dealing with, how likely is it that last year was the "simple" version of the offense to get us going and this year is the WCO-201 course?
I mean, it could explain why the receivers aren't always on the same page as the QB - and vice versa, it would explain the apparent regression as a learning curve would cause.

Lastly, how much are we unable to do?
On game day, a smart coach is only going to give his players the plays they've shown they can execute well.... are we being double-hampered by all of those other issues?

I actually do not see how anything a QB did in college has any impact on his evaluation after he has been in the NFL for four years. When you draft a player that's the only gauge you have to draw a conclusion from. But only the best in college ever make it to the pros. The competition is at an entirely different level and you have four or five years of film with which to make such a determination on at the pro level.

Baker brings out a unique situation. We have seen good Baker and bad Baker. It's a very mixed bag. He is only in his second year under Stefanski so there's not a long term, stable environment with which we would have a much clearer picture. I thought Baker was very immature when he first came here. Young people mature at different stages and he didn't seem that mature. But he outgrew all of that as he got older and seems quite mature and handles adversity pretty well in public. Something I think he would have had real trouble with when he was first drafted. Some people never seem to mature but Baker certainly isn't one of those people.

I don't think any final decision will be made about Baker at the end of this season. We have seen enough good Baker over his time here that I believe they will, and rightfully so, give it next year to see what a healthy Baker in year three of the same system looks like. I have no idea of how much or how little Bakers injuries are hampering his play. But actually nobody outside of the organization does either. I watched Baker play an excellent half of football against the Ravens with those same injuries. Then I watched him struggle in the second half. So that sends a very confusing message in regards to the injuries having a big negative impact.

That being said, I think it's not reasonable to expect someone to be "their best" playing with injuries. But once again, that was a pretty good first half of football. I think this FO will give Baker the opportunity to play healthy and in the third year of the system before any final judgement is made. As with what I feel is certainly the wishes of almost every Browns fan, I hope we find Baker to be the answer. This QB situation has gone on long enough. As a fan base we deserve Baker to be the answer and as he's matured, he's become a hard guy not to like.

why in gods name would i want a browns QB to fail?seriously, i want baker to suck? thats some of the dumbest crap ive ever heard. this nonsense is exactly what i highlighted earlier about if you not brown nosing baker you're not a real fan.

you keeping talking about the 'why' as if somehow i and other people haven't done that exact same thing. ive criticized every aspect of this offense throughout the season. i even said that if we didnt win the ravens game sunday that it was all on stefanski, not baker. for you to post as if none of those things are true just discredits whatever trash you just finish typing out.

this dude is the #1 overall pick. we've had two GM's in a row get him the best players possible. even with ALLLLLLL the injuries, we still have a top 5 rushing attack, the best RB core in football, and one of the best O line.

im really sorry purp that im critiquing baker mayfield in a baker mayfield thread. i dont know what got into me just now. i really thought that in a QB driven league, it was fair to critique the QB of your football team in a QB specific thread. i was not aware that this thread was only for bandwagon and pom poms. i understand now that im only supposed to say nice things about dear leader, because leaders arent actually leading, its supposed to be everyone else making him look good.

yall dont even realize that when you constantly blaming the next receiver, or the run game, or his 4th head coach, or the defense that is creating turnovers and keeping the team out of the endzone, that all you're doing is enforcing the belief that he ISNT the guy, right?

cause the last time i checked, the franchise QB was supposed to make the offense around him better. he's supposed to carry the team on his back when things arent going right on the field. he's supposed to carry you to W's when the run game got shut down the entire game. and yet all i get is the opinion that everything has to go right for baker to succeed.

thats the message clearly being sent here. well since you and others are sending the clear message that baker can't carry us to the promise land....why should i believe he's the future of this franchise?

its funny how with herbert, burrow, lamar, rodgers, wilson, watson, murray etc, its still the old saying of "well as long as they got that guy on the field, they have a chance"

nobody says that about baker mayfield. we all know that if we got any significant injuries on offense, we aint winning a damn thing. maybe thats why stefanski calls it the way he does, cause he doesnt believe mayfield can carry the team when things break down...

That's what it ends up always boiling down to. You can blame the WR's and that's okay. You can blame the OL and that's okay. You can blame the HC and that's okay. I mean hell, you can blame anybody and everybody besides the guy that's throwing the ball even when it's warranted.

i just dont get it. we drafted this dude #1 overall, and now people are upset that we're grading him based on franchise level criteria.

i believe our o line gives baker a lot of time to throw the ball. even with the bang up o line, we've managed to stay a top 5 rushing team and pass protection. a lot of baker's sacks come from holding on to the ball too long.

baker mayfield seems to have a problem reading defenses, pre-injury or not. is baker allowed to audible? if not, why? why is baker in year 4 still struggling with post snap reads? why is baker mayfield still struggling with touch on the football? we've ALL seen good baker, and we've all seen bad. i always combine both perspectives when evaluating this dude. a lot of baker's great games come from the rushing attack taking most of the pressure off of him. i cant think of some games, if he was in straight up gunslinger mode against other team who stopped our run, and won the game. i think he has one maybe?

a lot of these were reasons why we drafted him, right? cause he was supposed to be able to do all of those things on a consistent basis.

The draft is a tricky mistress. I mean that's evident from how many QB's end up as busts. But to a great extent yes, that's why we drafted him. I mean does he have the moxy everyone claims he does? I think so. Does he have the fire in his belly? Yes, I think so. But those aren't tangible ingredients than can always be measured on the field of play. That certainly aren't exchangeable for consistent accuracy and quickly diagnosing what the defense is doing.

What happens is like anything else. People draw lines in the sand and aren't open to anything that crosses that line. I know that Baker isn't the only problem. But what you see from franchise QB's is the ability to mitigate many of those problems. We have a great OL and if one starter is out people try and use that as an excuse. Many said we were very talented at the WR position before the season and even better without OBJ. Who BTW over the past three weeks has caught three TD passes. Now many of those same people say they suck. The story changes like the weather.

I hold baker responsible for throwing the ball. Nothing more and nothing less. I hold the defense responsible for giving up points. I hold WR's responsible for dropping catchable passes. Each person is responsible for their part. The only person throwing the ball is Baker. I gave Baker credit for having a great first half. As I said I could nitpick it to death to try and paint a picture that it wasn't good. But nobody expects him to be perfect. No QB is perfect.

But when they keep trying to blame everyone and their brother for only completing 42% of his second half passes and only 50% of his passes over the three previous games, somebody has to call BS on it.

LOL. No answer to my last post bust still spewing this stat but still have not watched the game again?
And where are those posters you claimed were claiming injury affected Baker in the 2nd half of this weeks Ravens game?

I have watched the game again. And you decided you would neglect to admit it's been the go to excuse when Baker has played bad ever since the injury? This week? No. Just every other excuse in the "Baker isn't doing bad" playbook. You give more excuses than a preacher has for why you should put more money in the collection plate.

So tell me, why is it Baker could only complete 42% of his passes in the second half and only 50% the previous three games? Because the team didn't like the offense being called?

That's not "decent" or "not bad" by anyone's standards. Well, except for some posters on Dawgtalkers.

I picked out these 3 parts to address specifically.

Once a player is drafted (especially a QB), his draft spot doesn't mean squat. Where one is drafted only means what the picking team thinks you can/will be. After your first NFL snap, what only matters is what you are. Some people might not understand this, but it's the truth. Draft position, especially after this long, is not a talking point.

I found your second comment kinda curious, since many people were laying the KC and SD losses at Baker's feet because he 'wasn't clutch enough' in the 4th quarter.

Similarly, I found your comment about the defense curious since you and others were excusing the early-season HORRENDOUS defensive showings.

You can't rely on his college offense in the pros. What he did well against inferior talent at the college level is meaningless in the NFL. Stefanski also called the first half of the Ravens game.

See here's the thing. People ranted and raved about analytics. When you get a big lead I would bet money that analytics tells you that running the ball, eating the clock and playing conservative gives you the best odds of winning. But when we do that, people complain about it. So I don't think it's analytics they love so much as it's selective analytics. They like it when it says what they want it to say.

It's true that we don't know what input Baker has. But then again other than QB's like Rodgers, Brady and the elite QB's, how many QB's actually are given the right to have a lot of input?

At this point in time I think there are more questions surrounding Baker than answers.

What I do know is this. If and or when this FO decides Baker isn't the answer, the answer will be simple. No team will willingly stay in what they deem will be mediocrity. You are correct that those guys are not easily found. Another thing that is not easily found is an NFL owner that will allow you to keep your job while not doing everything in your power to find an answer that will bring his investment success at the QB position.

That's exactly the point I'm trying to make with bonefish now. It's very much the reasons why they draft a player however. They look at his strengths and weakness and try to project how they will transfer to the pro game. But once they hit the NFL, they're judged by what they do in the NFL.


I saw that some people did. I however wasn't one of them. We scored 29 points against the Chiefs. We scored 42 points against the Chargers. Any time your offense scores that many points, you should win those games. My threshold is pretty much somewhere between 21 ans 24 points. That goes for both sides of the ball. If a defense gives up more points than that and your team loses, it rests on the defense. If your defense holds them to less points than that and your team loses, the fault lies with the offense.


I certainly didn't expect a defense with so many new moving to fire right out of the gate and expected it would take some time for all of those new moving parts to gel. And if one were to look back, while not great offensive teams, we held the bears to 6 points in week three and the vikings to 7 points in week 5. so even pretty early on it became a mixed bag.

I don't think I would have felt any different if we had that many new parts on the offensive side of the ball. But we didn't.

Just like in this game, our defense played a very solid first half and sucked canal water in the second half.

Baker has been inconsistent since the injury and the underlined pieces above speak for themselves...but via exaggeration and silliness. We do have top five talent at RB for sure.

Our WRs and TEs are no where near "the best players possible"...as a group they are woefully below the talent of every other team in our division...and also versus teams like the Chargers, Chiefs and Cardinals, to name a few teams that we have lost to this year. We had a G at RT for much of the season and now have a 4th Rd rookie who only recently became "better" than the G...at RT. Our LT play has not even been in the same orbit one would see in "one of the best Oline(s)...and our QB has been inconsistent all too often.

Our receiving talent was below average with OBJ...and is STILL below average without OBJ...and our QB has been inconsistent.

But still better without OBJ who has caught a TD pass for three weeks in a row now, right?

Come on man, looking at what OBJ has done since he left combined with what many were saying, that's funny right there.

He was inconsistent before as well, to be fair. I was one that gave pretty wide latitude to everyone left in the wake of the Freddie Kitchens debacle, and Baker was near tops of that list. Then KS comes in and Baker and the offense is off to a super slow start but get their mo' for the home stretch. Now that he's getting that consistency that he missed from his first couple years, he's regressed back to that shell of himself (with a fresh set of circumstances).

I don't think he's played as bad as some are trying to suggest, but I'm also really really glad we don't have to make a decision on him this off-season, because his play so far might push me to make a rash decision on a crazy trade.

I'm still riding with 6. The haters can hate.

Anyone who is honest are now haters. The typical response I expect from the typical suspects.

The Browns better figure out who the **** they are!

wco

So when you wrote this - you didn't mean what you wrote and you were only referring to games before the Ravens game and not including the Ravens game where you keep suggesting he was 'so bad' in the second half in that game. It would have been simpler if you had mentioned that before.

And ... having re-watched the game, what specifically was Baker so bad at? Was he consistently inaccurate? Did he miss wide open receivers running unmarked? Did he run from clean pockets? Make bad decisions and throw into double coverage when guys were open? .... were his pockets clean or was he under pressure? We know Baker struggles under pressure - was there much more in the second half when he completed only 42% ? In my mind . . . the point in re-watching the game is to talk about what you saw.

Edit - just saw all the 'Wah' posts. I don't think it's worth keeping this thread alive. I mean when OBJ isn't in the place where he's supposed to be on a team he never wanted to be on, asked for a trade and then engineered his release .... and you blame Baker because on his new team he's scored a TD in 3 games. Sort of says a lot.

Some have said the Raiders will blow up their roster next year.

Derek Carr has 1 more year on his contract. Any chance we could trade Baker to them?

If the Browns can beat the ravens. Browns 24, ravens 22.
Then the Browns can Beat Any Team in the NFL !!!

You still refuse to explain why 42% is not bad. He averaged 50% in the previous three games. Please show me any NFL QB currently starting with those numbers. You can't. It's not me who owes an explanation. 42% is extremely inaccurate. That really needs no further explanation. The same can be said for a three game streak of a 50% completion average. So you want me to explain to you why bad is bad? Seriously? I'm not sure what you seem to fail to understand about inaccurate.

No, I don't believe that to be a logical conclusion to beating the Ravens who were without so many of their impact players and Lamar going down. I think the Ravens will struggle to win many more games this season. By your rational anyone that beats them can beat anyone ....

With that said, I do believe that on their day - and with a healthy Baker we can beat anyone in the NFL. We've seen flashes of total domination. It's figuring out how to sustain that.

And then there is Covid - and who we end up losing each week.

No. I clearly explained in multiple posts: Watch the freaking game. It is right there in front of you. Choose to watch and accept or don't. Your choice.

WAH. WAH. WAH. WAH.

What I don't accept is Trying to act like that explains three games at 50% or how many QB's can succeed in what is basically no different than a short passing NFL WCO. Because that's exactly what you are describing. QB's do it every week without making excuses why it won't work.

I am not trying to act like anything. I was talking about the 2nd half of the Ravens game. The game where you said he blew chunks and was awful. You said that because of a 42% completion rate. I don't know if that rate is accurate - what I do know is that if you watch the game he doesn't blow chunks. Also what I know is that I am not trying to use that game to infer, imply or extrapolate ANYTHING regards the 3 games prior where he threw for 50%. That's (another) new spin from you.

I'm certain every man and his brother is fed up with the "WAH's" and this back and forth .... so I'll leave this as my last comment to you on Baker.

I didn't say the pass-catchers were better without OBJ Mr Goal Post Mover...I said they are STILL below average. You post like my Bengal fan friends (talk) who either don't watch Browns games or can't figure out what's going on without stats and the announcers to "explain" it to them.

Baker was actually 6/12 (50%) in the 2nd half with one incompletion which was the play he was crushed from behind and which looked like a fumble to me, but the refs ruled it pass after challenge by the Rats.

Where Baker Mayfield was drafted ranks about as important to me as where he went to high school in evaluating him. He is going to wrap up year 4 over the next month or so and there is an absolute crap ton of conflicting info in his "body of work", some stellar, some horrible, and everything in between. The staff has to figure out what that means for his trajectory going forward just as they would if he was a 3rd round pick.... fortunately, we have next year to figure it out since none of the top tier are coming here and I seriously doubt we are drafting a QB real high to challenge him in camp... Try to add a couple more pieces, try to stay healthy, see what happens...

This is a young offense built around Baker. The offensive scheme in place is not what your "Rodgers" of the world are wanting to play. Heck, most fans don't understand or like it. It's a simple no thrills scheme. It's multi-dimensional. It's not expensive to maintain. My belief is after a few years we see a revolving door of playmakers built on speed and power.

Seasons are long and decided by attrition. You create a simple scheme where it is easy to train young talent to be successful in a short amount of time.

I think fans get overly concerned about the high-end talent that they forget the expense it takes to maintain and sustain.

Spot on. I have to believe that AB & Co see it that exact same way...hence their seeming to be non-committal on a new contract. They see a lot of things we do not...on and off the field.

There is the dreaded "he's not THEIR guy" factor that I think is real but not as prevalent as some fans (including myself) might think. Moving on from a 3+ year starter who took the team to the playoffs...and won a playoff game (nearly 2) two seasons removed from 1-15 isn't something that is all that cut-and-dried to decide.

There's really nothing left to explain. Excuses only last so long. In Baker's last eight halves of football he's thrown for a 50% completion rate in seven out of eight of them. That's not an anomaly, that's a trend. I find it very odd how people seemed to say that Kurt Warner breaking down one half of football explains this entire stretch. Of course he said exactly what they wanted to hear so it gave them a warm fuzzy feeling. Something to cling to.

And I would certainly agree with you if it were a single game. A single half. But after four games with seven of those eight halves being terrible performances, it's about time the fans accept that unless Baker gets back to being good Baker, we have a problem here. And blaming everyone else and their brother isn't going to solve it. Stats used in an isloted case or game, we would agree. That's not the case here and everyone, even those making all the excuses know it deep down.