Baker Mayfield appears to reveal his preferred NFL team, then backtracks
It seems like the 35th anniversary of the greatest quarterback draft in NFL history is bringing us not only a similar haul of quarterbacks coming out of college, but a crop of guys who don’t want to play for the team with the first overall pick.
Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield seemed to indicate on Instagram that he wanted to play not for the Cleveland Browns but for the Miami Dolphins, who will be picking 11th.
The Heisman winner projects as a top 10 pick, so whoever picks him, he’s probably not falling all the way to the Dolphins; indeed, he’s a perfectly valid choice for Cleveland, especially if Josh Rosen is serious about pulling a John Elway and forcing a trade.
Miami receiver Kenny Stills seemed to break the story that Mayfield wants to throw the ball to him:
Kenny Stills is live on Instagram. And Baker Mayfield is letting people know where he wants to be drafted. #miami #dolphins pic.twitter.com/iyUvpXg5Yo
— Simon Clancy (@SiClancy) January 18, 2018
Mayfield, however, quickly turned on the PR Machine and pointed out that a receiver asking him where he wants to be drafted must naturally invite the response, “Oh, I totally want to play for your team,” especially since Mayfield and Stills are both Sooners:
Just so everybody knows… I commented about playing for Miami because I was talking to a former Sooner in Kenny Stills. Everybody can relax, I will play anywhere that gives me a chance. I'm not picky, I will go anywhere and strive to uplift a franchise and win ball games.
— Baker Mayfield (@bakermayfield) January 19, 2018
“Everyone can relax, I will play anywhere that gives me a chance,” Mayfield said. “I will go anywhere and strive to uplift a franchise and win ball games.”
Which, considering Cleveland is 1-31 in the last two seasons, “games,” plural, would be more wins than the Browns have had since 2015, even if they go 2-14 with Mayfield at the helm.
Meanwhile, Mel Kiper Jr., the pompadour-bedecked draft guru for ESPN, has Josh Allen of Wyoming going No. 1 overall in his mock draft, while he sees Mayfield falling all the way to 13 and ending up with the Washington Redskins.
The Skins already have a quarterback in Kirk Cousins, but Cousins is likely to test the waters in free agency; the time might be right for Washington to draft its quarterback of the future and enjoy four years of a signal caller on a rookie contract.
Fairly recent history with Russell Wilson and Joe Flacco has shown that’s a great way to have cap room to sign an elite defense; Seattle and Baltimore won a Super Bowl apiece, and the Seahawks came one play at the goal line from winning two in a row. Since those two teams locked up their quarterbacks to long-term deals at franchise-level money, they haven’t seen that level of success, and both teams missed the playoffs in 2017.
Washington would do well to heed that living advice.
Then again, so would Miami. If, as Kiper claims, Mayfield will be on the board at 11, why not draft him, let him compete with Ryan Tannehill for the starting job, and if Mayfield looks promising, the Dolphins could leverage Tannehill at trade time into picks they could put into the offensive line or the defense, exactly the way Seattle and Baltimore built their Super Bowl teams.
Depending on who you ask, there are either four (Allen, Rosen, Mayfield and USC’s Sam Darnold) or five great quarterbacks in this draft; Kiper isn’t sold on Lamar Jackson out of Louisville, but Dan Kadar of SB Nation has Jackson going 17th to the Chargers as the heir apparent to Philip Rivers.
On the other hand, Kadar has Mayfield going fifth overall to the Broncos, who in Kadar’s words “have often gone after bigger quarterbacks like Paxton Lynch, Brock Osweiler, or even Trevor Siemian.” Mayfield, at 6 feet 1, is smaller than those guys, but he’s still a physical, athletic 209-pound guy who’s not as squishy as your typical quarterback.
So will Mayfield get to Miami? It’s as viable an option as any other in this draft. But no matter what happens, it looks like Mayfield will be happy to suit up and play anywhere, doing his part to give that legendary 1983 draft class a run for its money.
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