5 NFL teams that should draft Baker Mayfield in 2018

Baker Mayfield has been a great quarterback for the Oklahoma Sooners but does his game translate to the NFL? Here are five NFL teams that could draft him.

Over the last two college football seasons, quarterback Baker Mayfield has been a revelation in the Air Raid passing game for the Oklahoma Sooners. The former Texas Tech walk-on has become one of college football’s most lethal gunslingers in Lincoln Riley’s dynamic system.

Mayfield plays with a ton of toughness. His competitive edge and sheer will have helped him become one of the best vertical passers in the college game today. He loves college football so much, he’s coming back to Norman for his redshirt senior season in 2017. That being said, Mayfield isn’t going to be better than a fourth round pick in the 2018 NFL Draft.

His slender build, playing in a spread offense and a perceived lack of NFL athleticism will make him a likely day three NFL Draft pick. However, Mayfield has this “it” quality that could make him a solid NFL backup quarterback for years. If given the right opportunity, he can be a starter in the NFL in his mid-20s.

Here are five NFL teams that could draft Mayfield in the 2018 NFL Draft.

Though Matt Ryan is playing at an MVP level for the 2016 Atlanta Falcons, he is on the wrong side of 30 and may only have half a decade left of prime football. Ryan has missed two NFL games in his nine-year NFL career since 2008, so Atlanta has never really had to worry too much about its backup quarterback situation.

The problem is that the last time the Falcons had a solid backup quarterback was when Matt Schaub was Atlanta’s backup signal caller the first time. Schaub once backed up Michael Vick after starring collegiately for the Virginia Cavaliers. He would find success as a starter for Gary Kubiak with the Houston Texans in the mid-2000s but Schaub returned to Atlanta to back up Ryan, mostly to be another Kyle Shanahan disciple in the Flowery Branch quarterback room.

Atlanta would be wise to draft a quarterback in the fourth to seventh round of either the 2017 or 2018 NFL Draft as a bit of a developmental project. Mayfield is best served to play in a West Coast offense as a pro and probably for a southern dome team. His arm strength feels comparable to Ryan’s but may offer more scrambling ability than Matty Ice. Shanahan does like to see his quarterbacks run the occasional play-action bootleg.

Mayfield seems to be a student of the game and could be a serviceable backup in the NFL by 2019. He’ll have to learn the nuances of a pro-style offense, but a backup/third string/practice squad role in Atlanta doesn’t seem like a bad entry-level job for Mayfield. Working with Shanahan, Ryan and maybe even Schaub will only lessen the steep learning curve for the Oklahoma gunslinger.