@travdogg
Who are the two you’d take over Mayfield?
Russell Wilson is 35. Kirk Cousins is 36. I’d rather have Baker’s next 5 years than theirs. Tannehill, JG, Minshew? Come on.
Fields? Someone is going to pay a steep price to find out it wasn’t the Bears’ fault. We can agree to disagree on Fields.
Mayfield was a borderline top 10 QB this year. I wouldn’t want to pay any of those guys over him. Even at $10M less.
If we want to let Mayfield go because the contract demands are too high I can live with that, but then it’s Trask/rookie versus signing any of those other guys.
I’ve looked at that list for 10 minutes trying to think of the two you’d have over Mayfield. Is this one of those trick questions?
Not a trick question at all. Its Justin Fields and Russell Wilson. I don't think Mayfield is/was a borderline top-10 QB, I think he's about QB20, and is being vastly overrated. Dave Canales deserved a HC job, for the year he got out of him, and even then it was just fine, not great.
Mayfield was 19th in completion percentage, 16th in YPA, 19th in QBR, and 19th in PFF grade. Wilson had a higher completion percentage and passer rating (in addition to obvious rushing superiority) despite a FAR inferior supporting cast. Fields averaged just as many yards per game.
I think Mayfield played solid in the playoffs, and I think that is perhaps making him look better than he was. In the 2 weeks before, he had 2 win and you're in games, and was awful. Leading his team to 23 points in 2 games, against bad teams, and the 14 against NO was arguably garbage time. I weigh that equal to his playoff games. He had an awesome game against the Packers, and another good one against the Jags, but played poorly in both Carolina wins, and against Atlanta.
I thought Mayfield played at a slightly above average level last year, and his history suggests that's a high-end outcome, and that a regression is very likely. I thought all things considered Russell Wilson played just as well, in a worse situation, and Fields was only slightly worse, in a FAR worse situation. If Baker is willing to settle for like 25 million, I could see working out a short term deal (I still would ideally look to draft a QB in round 1 or 2, Bo Nix would be nice) anything more than that feels like a mistake.
I'll stress again Mayfield was the 2nd luckiest QB in the NFL behind only Desmond Ridder when it came to INTs. Counting the playoffs Mayfield threw 12 INTs, but it could/should have been at least double that. Mayfield's 2023 rings a lot of Daniel Jones in 2022 bells in that way. TB made a nice move buying low on Mayfield a year ago, I think treating him like he's a much different QB than he was a year ago, is buying high.