Projecting the value of Baker Mayfield’s new Cleveland Browns contract

The new contract for Baker Mayfield will blow people’s minds, but it will really be quite fair.

At some point Baker Mayfield will sign a new contract with the Cleveland Browns. There should be very little debate about this. He is the first-string quarterback of the Browns and there really is no other serious candidate. There is no quarterback controversy.

He may not be the best quarterback in NFL history, but he is the best quarterback for the Browns, right now, at this point in Cleveland Browns history, and that is all that really matters.

Some well-intentioned fans have suggested that the Browns should use the fifth-year option followed by the franchise tag. That franchise tag allowed Dak Prescott and his agent, Todd France of Athletes First, to take Jerry Jones and the Cowboy front office to the cleaners.

Their client is a tremendous player, but he vaulted to the second-highest salary in the league, receiving a four-year, $160 million dollar contract this off-season. The Prescott deal is all the more insane because the salary cap allowance has contracted due to the revenue hit that resulted from the pandemic.

Mahomes getting $45 mil per year when the cap allowance was $198.2 million means his negotiated rate was 22.7% of the cap allowance. Prescott’s rate is $40 M in a year when the cap allowance is $182.5% or 21.9% of the cap allowance. What would make anyone think that the team had any kind of leverage due to the franchise tag?

It’s the other way around. In fact, the Jones family might not have any oil wells left after that humiliating negotiation. All the leverage lies with the player, as aptly pointed out by R.J. Bell of Straight Outta Vegas.

So thanks but no thanks, we are not going the franchise route unless negotiations breakdown. This long-term deal is going to get done unless there is some terrible disconnect about Mayfield’s value.

To get an idea of what a quarterback is worth, the graph in the embedded Tweet shows the quarterback salaries in order throughout the NFL from one to 40 (the table is attached as a separate page if you want to click on it). If you look at the numbers, there is a huge drop-off at the Brady level.

However, the data is a little bit tainted because big Ben Roethlisberger is actually getting paid $25 million this season, but his bonus money is being charged to future cap years (the play now, pay later plan, which the NFL has decided is legal, at least for now). But despite the contract voodoo practiced with some of the veteran contracts in that mid-range, quarterback salaries really do drop off and the lower echelon is not paid nearly as much as the top quarterbacks.

Mayfield has done so much more than hand the ball off and throw it. He has energized the entire city and gotten the team to believe in him. More importantly, the team believes in itself now. The team had plenty of kids who could sling the football, but Mayfield added so much more that cannot be measured by simple stats.

At the same time, Mayfield has established an identity with the Browns. Advertisers cannot get enough of him and his lovely and personable wife Emily. They appear on TV commercials together thanks to a lucrative deal with Progressive.

Cleveland needs Mayfield and Mayfield needs Cleveland. It could not be any more clear.

Baker and Emily also give back to the community. They have raised millions of dollars for charity, have visited and inspired countless children battling difficult illnesses. The Cleveland Browns have always been way out in front in trying to use their fame and fund-raising ability to make an impact in the community and to be a positive force for our kids, especially in northeast Ohio.

You may say Baker does not do this and Baker does not do that. Well, there are things that every quarterback does not do well. Tom Brady is not the mobile quarterback that everyone likes, but he still makes defensive coordinators pee their pants in the fourth quarter.

Thus, the floor is provided by Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger at $25 million per season. Baker will absolutely, positively be paid more than that. But how much more? Let’s take a deep dive on that, and try to arrive at an actual number. The last page of this three-page article contains the table of salaried corresponding to the graph, along with some additional comments.