Baker Mayfield: 5 best fits in 2018 NFL Draft

After playing in a unique system in college, Baker Mayfield has skills that suit him better with certain types of offenses and these NFL teams fit him best.

Everywhere Baker Mayfield has gone he has been a winner. At Oklahoma he had a 33-6 record as a starter. He is one of the most competitive players ever and passion is clear when you watch him on the sidelines.

It appears that he is ready to play from the jump because most of his techniques have been refined. We can find the teams that fit him best, similar to what I did with Josh Allen by analyzing his strengths and weaknesses then matching them with the personnel on each team.

Biggest Strength

Mayfield has talked about and made clear that he is the most accurate passer in the NFL draft. One NFC Coach referred to him as the most accurate passer he’s ever seen coming out of college. The stats back up what everybody has said, as he has the 11th-greatest NCAA career completion percentage since 1956. All of this means he is expected to come to the NFL and make most of the throws necessary.

Biggest Weakness

There are two things that people look at when considering the downside to Mayfield. His nonsense on the sideline and his size. It seems that people are beginning to view the antics as competitiveness, however people wonder whether he is Drew Brees or Johnny Manziel height wise. He has played with this size disadvantage throughout college and has seemed to adjust but the NFL is another beast. Teams will have to decide how comfortable they feel about his height.

5. New York Jets

Mayfield brings the risk of instability. The Jets are the Kings of Dysfunction. These two coming together could go horribly wrong. Regardless of this, let’s evaluate the match between these two from a player perspective.

The Jets wide receiver depth is ridiculous, with Robby Anderson, Quincy Enunwa, Jermaine Kearse, and Terrelle Pryor. Part of this may be due to the potential for Anderson to be suspended or face jail time for some offseason run-ins with the law. More importantly this depth means any combination of routes can be run on every play.

For the most part, they can all run every route, although Anderson is best going deep and Kearse is best underneath. This has two implications. It could result in an unnecessarily complex playbook that could trip up Mayfield as rookie, or could result in the ability to spread the field for a spread offense. The latter is Mayfield’s dream NFL offense. Throughout his college career, he played in this type of offense, preparing him to do so in the NFL.

However, inconsistency in the backfield with the Jets running back carousel won’t help him feel comfortable. Combine this with the Jets well below average offensive line, making Mayfield run around the backfield and there isn’t much of a chance for him to be comfortable. The lack of talent on the offensive line also brings out the potential for Mayfield’s passes to be batted down at the line of scrimmage.

While the concept of the Jets running a spread offense with Mayfield at the helm is great, the issues with the pairing are too great to ignore.