Baker Mayfield: 5 incredibly stupid myths about the Browns quarterback

Myth No. 4: Baker Mayfield is too short

Shorter quarterbacks in the NFL include Pro Bowler Kyler Murray at 5-foot-10 inches, Tua Tagovailoa at 6-feet even, and seven-time Pro Bowler Russell Wilson at 5-foot-11-inches. Jalen Hurts is tied at 6-foot-1, but we’ll give him the tiebreaker because he is built like a fire hydrant.

Mayfield was actually measured at 6-foot-and five eighths of an inch, or a little bit less than 6-foot-1. So, Mayfield is 29th out of 32 quarterbacks in terms of height, or 12th percentile. Not that exciting. However, since two of the players shorter than he is have accumulated eight Pro Bowl visits, perhaps the height issue is a bit overblown.

Until this year, Drew Brees was also a shorter quarterback, but he’s no longer active. The 13-time Pro Bowler did not do too badly for his career,either.

Russell Wilson has two Super Bowl appearances and one win. He would have had two wins were it not for what is regarded as one of the boneheaded calls in Super Bowl history. The coach would have made a better call with a taller quarterback, sure!

The envy of any quarterback is Brett Favre’s record of 297 consecutive starts, or even to make it through an entire season without missing a start. The real height issue for Mayfield is to actually accept that he is 6-foot-1 and 215 pounds and not think that he is as big as Ben Roethlisberger. Mayfield has been known to take on defensive linemen and linebackers when he does not have to.

Two points need to be made. First, Baker is not that big, and second, Ben has accumulated a few dents in his cranium, too. Ben is not as big as he thinks, either. Yes, he can complete passes sometimes with defenders hanging all over him, and he used to love that when he was a kid, but he eventually was taught that it is not a particularly good idea. Baker has to play smarter than Roethlisberger.