Looking Forward to the 2019 AFC North

Seems like both you and @SAS , are forgetting about someone. There's a guy named Brady that plays in New England. Love him or hate him, it would be tough to argue that any or all of the ones mentioned so far are better than him.

Regarding Mayfield: So far in his brief career as a pro, he has clearly demonstrated he has the raw talent. Add in the supporting cast surrounding him now, and he definitely has the opportunity to propel himself into the very upper escellon of NFL QB's. If he can avoid injury, it's going to be fun watching to see if he actually does.

 

Not sure how I didn't type Brady...even as his physical ability declines his numbers stay strong and makes up for what he can't do physically with what he can do mentally.

There's no doubting what Mayfield can be capable of. Ranking him ahead of any of the current top QB's right now though is silly.

 

I'm sure there's some absurd PFF subjective metric that says Brady's bottom in the league.

I've been a fan of Mayfield's since he stepped out in an Oklahoma jersey. I remember watching him for the first time thinking, "Why is all the hype on everyone else?" (this being prior to the year he was set to enter the draft). That said, it's a very real thing for QB's to have success in this league early on, and falter later. If Mayfield can continue or even improve on his rookie performances, that'll be impressive, and indicative of a strong career. There are still traits obviously needing improvement.

 

Sigh. Lamar is too open in interviews while also being very critical of himself. The majority of reports from open practices have praised him. He's been his harshest critic and people use that as a reason the Ravens will apparently falter in 2019. I guess only time will tell

 

He's not a good passer. There's no sense in trying to pretend that he is. Can he get better? Absolutely. But that's precisely what you want from your young QB - acknowledging their flaws, and working on them.

 

If you say so. It's amazing how a 58% completion percentage became the equivalent of simply being a bad passer in 2018. Lamar has horrible mechanics in his lower body thay affect his throws. I don't equate that to simply being a bad passer

 

He doesn't even throw the ball enough to qualify for a completion percentage stat list. For a starting QB, that's a bad sign.

And yes, a 58% completion rate is downright awful. It would put him behind all but 2-3 QB's, including Flaaco. He is a rookie, so he's got plenty of time to improve. But he has never thrown a good, consistent ball, and becoming a new player at the NFL level is a tough thing to do...

 

I can believe he didn't throw enough to qualify for whatever list you mentioned. He only started 7 games.

Speaking of Joe, you remember that historic playoff run? You know what nobody has ever said about it? That he was inaccurate. Which, by your statement, is interesting since it was actually under 58%

Annnnnd it's also interesting that those 2-3 QBs you mentioned don't have a consistent "He CAn'T ThROw" narrative always attached to their names.

Lamar is an incredible athlete who can do things with his legs other QBs couldn't even dream of. I've noticed that because of that, it makes people more subconsciously critical of his every pass that isn't perfect. Half the throwing narrative on him is about how tight his spiral is. There are twitter vids of Lamar throwing accurate, with velocity, hitting WRs in stride and the first comment you'll see is "His spiral is better but still not perfect" as if that made it a horrible pass.

As said though, we'll see how the season turns out. There are enough examples of QBs improving their accuracy numbers in the NFL for me not to lose my mind after 8 starts. Especially when his primary issue came from a fixable base stance as opposed to just arm issues

 

And what's really amazing is that Mayfield was a rookie (against guys in their seventh, fourteenth, and nineteenth seasons), got zero reps with the first time until he was pressed into action half-way through a game, and had Hue Jackson - objectively the worst NFL coach of the last 40 years - as his coach for half the season.

Looking at just Mayfield's numbers with Kitchens (per Game):

Comp%: 68.4 (1st)
Yards: 281.8 (1st)
TD: 2.4 (1st)
Sack: 0.6 (1st)
Rating: 106.2 (2nd - Wilson, 110.9)

I repeat, only Drew Brees and Patrick Mahomes were better quarterbacks in 2018 than Baker Mayfield. And even in among those three, there was competition. Mayfield was 2nd in completion percentage (1st, Brees), 2nd in yards (1st, Mahomes), 2nd in touchdown rate (1st, Mahomes), 1st in sacks, and 3rd in QB efficiency (1st, Brees; 2nd Mahomes).

 

You can cherry pick any numbers you want and make all the excuses and set all the parameters you want...until he accomplishes more on the field than the other guys mentioned...calling Mayfield a top 3 QB in this league is fanboy homerism at its absolute worst.

 

Aaron Rodgers went 6-9-1 as a stater. Mayfield went 6-7 as a starter (7-7 overall). So... we can agree then that he accomplished more last season and we can cross Rodgers off officially as "competition".

Or were you expecting him to win a Super Bowl last year, as a rookie, without being the starter for the season opener for a team that had just gone 0-16? Because Wilson, Rodgers, and Brees all have the same number of Super Bowl wins as Joe Freaking Flacco - one - in a combined 40 seasons.

Is there a preferred metric for Bears' fans? I know it has to have been tough not having a QB since before the Savings and Loan crisis of the late 80's to rate... maybe I'm using too modern of an approach with, you know, their stats.

How about rookie seasons?



Mayfield wins.

First season as the full-time starter?



Dang it! Mayfield, again.

 

Wins and losses are team accomplishments and definitely not the end all be all of determining how good a QB is.

If you want to pretend Mayfield is a better QB than Rodgers....I’ll leave you to your delusions because that’s a level of stupidity that isn’t worth arguing with.

Mayfield exceeded my expectations of him last season. I thought he was really good. I think he stumbled at times when he played against defenses that were ranked near the top of the league but that should be expected.

I wasn’t talking about Super Bowls.

Greatness doesn’t come from one season. It comes from proving over and over again, season after season, that you can perform at or near the top of the players at your position.

Rodgers, Brees, Brady, and others have done that. Mayfield....hasn’t.

What you’re using is a stat only approach. Football is more than stats. It may come as a shock to you but there’s more to football than PFF.

If metrics determined everything...the Patriots wouldn’t be back to back champions and Brady wouldn’t be the GOAT.

Football is more than a stat sheet. But fanboys like you will never understand that.

Congrats...where’s his trophy? Oh wait...you don’t get trophies for cherry picked stats? Damn.....

 

Damn, I understand Sam references PFF regularly, but when he takes basic stats and uses them to demonstrate his point, how is your comeback "there's more to football than PFF"?

So as was stated, what is the way to judge a QB? You cant use the eye test, that is subjective. That is why stats. So what is the best measure? I am sincerely asking. Is it YPG? RTG? TD/INT? W/L?

Instead of sh!t talking, why don't you contribute to the conversation?

 

First and foremost, longevity. You can't call a rookie QB one of the top three passers in the game. Why? Well, how about the long list of fantastic starts or single seasons that QB's have had, only to disappear as their career progressed? To compare one season of Mayfield to the same year of, say, Aaron Rodgers, is absolutely cherry-picking. It ignores the fact that great players in this game need to be great for multiple years. One-year wonders lead to disappointed teams whose salary cap / rosters can be set back years, as a consequence.

Let's just look at some QB's, very recently (all active QB's), who had outstanding rookie years, and built up similar hype:
DeShaun Watson
Marcus Mariota
Andy Dalton
Jameis Winston
Matt Ryan
Dak Prescott
Russell Wilson
Cam Newton
Robert Griffin III
Ben Roethlisberger

Now, some of the guys on that list turned out to be pretty good. On that list also exists an historic bust, and a whole bunch of QB's whose teams have mired in mediocrity while waiting for them to reproduce / improve.

Now, if quick glance serves, some of those guys had better rookie season than Mayfield (I'm not going into specifics - it's not a point that deserves that much attention).

Even someone with very little sense can see how crazy it would be to call anyone on that list, or anyone with a great rookie season who would be among them, a "Top 3 QB in the NFL" immediately after their rookie year. But, SAS has never been accused of having sense.

 

First of all....blow me. If you don’t like my argument then simply don’t read it. Or read it and crap your pants but that’s not really a constructive way of doing things. Just some healthy advice.

He didn’t simply take basic stats. He cherry picked what he wanted to use and went with it. In the midst of that he ruled out Rodgers even being competition for Mayfield. How do you read that and continue to take him seriously?

And to answer how you judge a QB...it’s everything all rolled into one. It’s the QB’s role in his teams success mixed with stats mixed with the eye test and opinion of their physical ability.

There is no one way to judge any player. You don’t just take stats and say here eat this...because stats don’t tell the whole story. And W/L isn’t always on the QB. Does anyone really think the Packers sucked last season BECAUSE of Rodgers? Is Mayfield the reason the Browns missed the playoffs? No, on the contrary they made their teams better. Whereas a guy like say...Mitch Trubisky that made the playoffs but certainly wasn’t his teams biggest reason why....is he better than Rodgers? Definitely not. Football continues to be a team sport.


And the bottom line is....in no realistic fashion is Baker Mayfield at this point in his career a Top 3 QB. Can he be? Definitely. He’s talented enough. But no stats from last season would make that true right now. And that’s all I’m arguing against:

 

Get a girlfriend BWW. Other teams fans aren’t interested in blowing you.

 

You're sure trying, though.

 

You follow me enough that it seems like you do Gid.

 

Nobody is following your sorry ass BWW. We just post on all the same message boards.