Cleveland Browns: Comparing Baker Mayfield’s rookie year to other rookie QBs

Passing Touchdowns

"1. Baker Mayfield: 27 TDs 2. Sam Darnold: 17 TDs 3. Josh Rosen: 11 TDs 4. Josh Allen: 10 TDs 5. Lamar Jackson: 6 TDs"

The easiest way to win a football game is by scoring touchdowns. Baker does that better than any other rookie quarterback through the air.

Mayfield’s 27 touchdowns are the most touchdown passes a rookie quarterback has thrown in NFL history. I’m sure all Browns fans have heard that at least once a day since he broke the record. However, his total gets even more impressive when you consider he has as many passing touchdowns as Josh Rosen, Josh Allen, and Lamar Jackson combined.

Lamar Jackson only got seven starts this season, so he may have had more passing touchdowns if he started as many games as the other rookies. However, he most likely wouldn’t have had more passing touchdowns than Darnold or Mayfield.

Darnold and Mayfield were the only rookie quarterbacks to average at least one passing touchdown per game. Baker actually averaged more than two passing touchdowns a game, which is extremely impressive for a rookie quarterback.

Interceptions

"1.  Lamar Jackson: 3 INTs 2. Josh Allen: 12 INTs 3. Baker Mayfield: 14 INTs (tie) 3. Josh Rosen: 14 INTs (tie) 5. Sam Darnold: 15 INTs"

Lamar’s lack of starts finally helps him out in a statistic. He only threw three interceptions in his seven starts. He is also the only rookie quarterback to average less than one interception per start. To show you how important interceptions are in a teams success, let’s look at Baker’s season.

The Browns were 5-1 when Baker didn’t throw an interception, 2-2 when he threw one interception, and 0-4 when he threw two or more interceptions. The turnover difference is the key to winning games. This is the reason that Lamar Jackson is 6-1 as a starter, he doesn’t turn the ball over much. It’s easy to not turn over the ball when your career high in passing attempts is 25, though.

Baker had four games this season where he threw multiple interceptions, and three of those four games were against playoff teams. Those teams were the Ravens, Texans, Chargers, and the Raiders.

Baker definitely has room for improvement and showed improvement in each of those games. He had the best half of football he’s ever had in his career against the Texans after throwing three interceptions in the first half. His amount of interceptions should go down in future seasons of his career the more he understands NFL defenses.