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

Passing Touchdowns to Interceptions ratio

"1. Lamar Jackson: 2.0 TD/INT 2. Baker Mayfield: 1.93 TD/INT 3. Sam Darnold: 1.13 TD/INT 4. Josh Allen: 0.83 TD/INT 5. Josh Rosen: 0.79 TD/INT"

The key to winning football games is scoring touchdowns and not turning the ball over. It’s a simple formula that doesn’t need to be stated. The key to great quarterback play is the same, score touchdowns and don’t turn the ball over.

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Lamar Jackson and Baker Mayfield are at the top of this statistic and they have the best starting records of the rookie quarterbacks. Lamar has a small sample size, only starting seven games and attempting 158 passes in those games. In comparison, Baker started 13 games and attempted 486 passes, the most out of any of the other rookies.

Darnold attempted 414 passes in 13 games, Rosen attempted 393 passes in 13 games, and Josh Allen attempted 305 passes in 11 starts. If Lamar had started 13 games, he would have most likely ended somewhere around 293 passes. Josh Allen would have likely attempted 360 passes if he had started 13 games.

The point that’s trying to be made here is that even though Lamar Jackson’s touchdown to interception ratio is higher than Baker’s, it isn’t as impressive as Baker’s ratio is given their circumstances. An interesting tidbit of information is that both Baker and Lamar started against the Raiders this season, both throwing two interceptions in their respective games against Oakland.

Yards Per Attempt

"1. Baker Mayfield: 7.7  Y/A 2. Lamar Jackson: 7.1 Y/A 3. Sam Darnold: 6.9 Y/A 4. Josh Allen: 6.5 Y/A 5. Josh Rosen: 5.8 Y/A"

Yards per attempt speaks to how efficient a quarterback has been throwing the ball. If a quarterback has a low completion percentage, odds are he is going to have a low amount of yards per attempt.

Baker and Lamar are the two most accurate rookie quarterbacks, so they have the highest amount of yards per attempt. Baker has been slinging the rock incredibly well this season. Lamar, in his limited attempts, has done the same.

Being around 7 to 8 yards per attempt is a solid number for a quarterback. To give you a feel for why this is right, here is some of the other top quarterbacks in the league and their yards per attempt. This season, Aaron Rodgers averaged 7.4 yards per attempt. Russell Wilson averaged 8.1 yards per attempt. Tom Brady averaged 8.1 yards per attempt.

All of the rookie quarterbacks have room to improve in this statistic, but if you are a fan of Baker, Lamar, or Sam Darnold, you should be excited to see their numbers here. This statistic also shows how far ahead Baker is in his development than the other rookies, as the closest rookie quarterback is averaging half a yard less per attempt.

This reassures that Baker is the best passer in his draft class.