Cleveland Browns: Comparing Baker Mayfield’s rookie year to other rookie QBs
By Mitch Zoloty
Completion Percentage
"1. Baker Mayfield: 63.8 2. Lamar Jackson: 58.2 3. Sam Darnold: 57.7 4. Josh Rosen: 55.2 5. Josh Allen: 52.8"
Completion percentage as a statistic shows how accurate a quarterback is, and Mayfield has been significantly more accurate this season than his rookie counterparts. The rookies in this statistic are lumped into three groups — Mayfield, standing alone by himself at the top, Jackson, Darnold, and Rosen, all within 3 percent of each other, and Josh Allen, sitting at 52.8 percent.
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In Allen’s defense, he takes a lot more deep shots than Mayfield and the rest of the rookies seem to do. Allen came into the league with people enamored about his powerful cannon of an arm and he’s shown that in his rookie campaign. Allen has the most potential out of all the rookies in terms of physical ability.
Baker had drawn many comparisons to dead-eye quarterback Drew Brees before the season. Mayfield’s play this season showed just how accurate those comparisons were, as he himself was a dead-eye out of the pocket, making some incredible throws.
This season, Baker had 5 outings where he had 20 or more passing attempts and a completion percentage of 70 percent or higher. Drew Brees had nine of these type of games this season, even almost hitting a whopping 90 percent completion percentage one game. Out of the other rookie quarterbacks, Sam Darnold had one game like this, and the rest had none.
If Baker can develop into a younger version of Brees, the Browns future should be extremely bright. With a general manager like John Dorsey at the helm, the team could see many winning seasons in its future.
Passing Yards per Game
"Baker Mayfield: 271.1 YPG Sam Darnold: 220.4 YPG Josh Allen: 181.8 YPG Josh Rosen: 172.5 YPG Lamar Jackson: 159.1 YPG"
I should mention that their passing yards per game here are only in games that the quarterbacks started. Lamar Jackson’s passing yards per game stat was very skewed due to the games that he played in without throwing a pass, back when Joe Flacco was the starter.
It is also worth noting that Josh Allen’s career high for passing yards in a game is 245, Lamar Jackson’s is 204, and Josh Rosen’s is 252. Those are all below Baker’s average as a starter. Baker’s career high is 397, and Sam Darnold’s is 341 for further comparison.
The most surprising aspect of this comparison is how large the gap is between Baker and the rest of the rookie quarterbacks. Darnold is the closest one, and even he is 51 yards behind Baker. Baker averages 112 more passing yards per game than Lamar Jackson. That alone should end any talks about Lamar having a better rookie campaign than Baker.