Baker Mayfield’s Depressing Completion Percentage
April 1st, 2023
Bucs QB Baker Mayfield.
Look, Joe likes the signing of Baker Mayfield as the Bucs new quarterback to compete with Kyle Trask.
He’s got winning playoff experience and Joe likes the low investment/high-reward element. If Mayfield gags like he did in Carolina, the Bucs move on and draft a quarterback next year. No harm, no foul.
If Mayfield balls out, well, the Bucs have their new quarterback for at least the next few years.
However, Jenna Laine of ESPN noted something that caught Joe’s eye about Mayfield. Apparently, he’s not that accurate.
Mayfield’s 64 interceptions are the most by any quarterback in the league since 2018.
So Joe did a bit of research that was not very comforting. Mayfield’s best completion percentage was in 2018, when he completed 64 percent of his passes during his rookie season.
With the exception of 2020 when he connected on 62 percent, Mayfield has seen his completion percentage stay pretty consistent at 60 percent.
That puts him right there with other quarterbacks including Derek Carr, Russell Wilson, Justin Fields, Marcus Mariota and Davis Mills.
Gulp.
But Joe is eager to see what Mayfield can do when throwing to Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. He’s never had experienced and consistent weapons like he will have with the Bucs.
April 1st, 2023 at 8:12 am
It took a woman for Joe to believe it. lol …60% is downright criminal and about the same as AR15
April 1st, 2023 at 8:20 am
Won’t the catch radius, height, and fight for the ball ability of Evans and Godwin pretty much negate or minimize that stat? Unless Baker is wildly inaccurate, as in not even close, this presupposition might be blown out of proportion
April 1st, 2023 at 8:31 am
Playing catch-up adds a bit to that
April 1st, 2023 at 8:31 am
He’s a short QB of course he would have a lower %.
April 1st, 2023 at 8:44 am
Didn’t Geno Smith have a great completion percentage? And wasn’t he coached by our new OC? If so, let’s see what he does here and not judge him by what he’s done in the past. He’s been in some s!it situations. If he’s still at 60% at the end of next season, we won’t be in the playoffs and we will be looking for other options, I bet.
April 1st, 2023 at 8:53 am
How much did blocking affect that? Will the style of the Offense improve his completion percentage? What was the average length of his passes that were incomplete? How many drops? Anyone can get to 70% if they are throwing to RBs and slants.
April 1st, 2023 at 8:57 am
I don’t believe in the “short QB” theory. Drew Brees is only 6 foot tall. Look, Mayfield started his career with the Browns and besides the Rams, who were having a bad year, hasn’t been with a good franchise. His last two years in college he had a 70% comp rate and 83 Tds to 14 ints, so he is capable. I like his moxie and leadership and its obvious the players love him, so I think he is going to be the guy going forward. I could be wrong, but give the man a chance and lets see what he can do.
April 1st, 2023 at 8:58 am
Never had experienced recievers? He had OBJ and Jarvis Landry in Cleveland, plus he had one of the best running games in the league, and a great offensive line.
April 1st, 2023 at 9:12 am
Yikes!
maybe Trask will end up winning and starting?
April 1st, 2023 at 9:18 am
A lot of this may be a product of his receivers…..and whether or not he threw a lot to backs…….He doesn’t seem like a check down type of QB.
It will be Canales’ job to rein him in……give him the Payton/Jameis treatment.
We keep hearing how accurate he is and it’s been from some sources in the know.
April 1st, 2023 at 9:34 am
His first season, 64%, 2:1 intercept ratio, second season, 59%, 1:1 pick ratio, third season he killed it–63%, 3:1 pick ratio, 3500 yards. Next season he played all year with a damaged shoulder, everything went downhill. Anyhow, I believe the potential is there
April 1st, 2023 at 9:35 am
His success or lack thereof depends on the amount of protection the o-line provides. Hopefully that is way better than last season.
April 1st, 2023 at 9:40 am
Agreed gotbucs the Browns were loaded with talent on offense. More than likely Mayfield will be an average QB which we can win with as long as the running game is way better than it’s been and the defense is at least as good as it has been.
April 1st, 2023 at 9:44 am
Hey Joe – What about your man crush Lamar Jackson?
63% avg completions…
I guess he gets a free pass. Lol.
April 1st, 2023 at 9:52 am
Lamar Jackson – 2022 comp% = 62%…
But hey let’s pay him $50m per season guaranteed and give away two first round picks for him.
LOL!
April 1st, 2023 at 10:08 am
Mayfly is like the second coming- of Jameis.
I just hope the coaches will be willing to bench him when it goes bad; which they failed to do with the first coming of Jameis.
I still think that Trask has almost no chance of starting the season. It will not be his fault, but the coaches are running a little scared and will put Mayfly in because of experience, maybe the same thing that kept Gabbert as #2 the last couple of seasons.
If I remember correctly Trask looked better than Gabbert last training camp, but lost out anyway.
April 1st, 2023 at 10:14 am
Hitching our hopes to baker mayfield is like tying your boat to a tree and wondering why we still sitting in shallow water 3 hours later, he is a bust!
April 1st, 2023 at 10:18 am
Yep. The coaches know that they shouldn’t play the players who give them the nest chance to win. They want to be fired, and since Trask has been locked in the onion cellar formthe last two years and no one has ever seen what he can do, Mayfield gets the start.
Bloweszo is inept, not insane. There’s a difference.
April 1st, 2023 at 10:39 am
Judge him after he starts playing.
April 1st, 2023 at 10:56 am
Didn’t he have Odell Beckham Jr and Jarvis Landry? or maybe I’m confusing him with another quarterback that played for the Browns?
April 1st, 2023 at 10:56 am
I think completion percentage in and of itself is a bit of a tricky stat because it doesn’t look at where those throws are being made. If you watch a lot of Baker Mayfield’s tape you will see that he throws a lot of passes downfield which by definition are lower percentage throws.
Drew Brees who was used as an example while I love what he did at quarterback, you could see that in his best years throwing football from a percentage completion perspective he was throwing a lot of passes to his running backs which were essentially gimme throws.
Go look at what Baker Mayfield’s deep pass completion percentages and then compare it to the goat Tom Brady.
All I am trying to say by that is that I think we have to break throws down by where they are thrown. If somebody is in an offense the dinks and dunks all day and his West Coast style usually those quarterbacks will complete a higher percentage of passes. Where is when you start getting into the quarterbacks who Chuck it down field a lot the percentage goes down.
April 1st, 2023 at 10:59 am
MEH, completion pct is just one color on the palette and doesn’t necessarily paint the entire picture for Mayfield or any QB for that matter. Hard to know what to expect w/Canales calling the shots, but I’m expecting at the very least for our QBs to look and operate this offense with some growing pains.
April 1st, 2023 at 11:08 am
@NYBucsfan
Had David Njoku, Rashad Higgins, Donovan Peoples-Jones, Kareem Hunt, AND Nick Chubb. Kind of falls in line with both the QBs we have on hand being guys who you wouldn’t want to don capes and win games solely off their arm talent, but be good enough as facilitators to execute given concepts & gameplans w/o being “Mr.Do It All”.
Even back to Traskfields’ college days, both played on teams where you can say they weren’t the most talented football players on their respective teams, but both were in position playing the most important position on the team while doing enough good to get desirable results from their peers. Most if not All QBs have some type of functional talent they’re surrounded by, but the really good ones are good at consistently feeding them and NOT making mistakes that are reductive to the collective effort.
April 1st, 2023 at 11:31 am
Remove all the dump passes to RB for Drew Brees and and check his completion %
April 1st, 2023 at 11:37 am
Wish we would have got gardener
April 1st, 2023 at 1:17 pm
So he’s a short version of flameous Jameis.
April 1st, 2023 at 1:24 pm
The oc is everything. Mcvay immediately played to bakers strengths , rolling him out, bootlegs, etc. That raider game instantly showed what importance an oc has on a qbs performance. I believe it will come out that mcvay wanted to roll with baker this year, but they couldn’t find any takers on Staffords massive contract. Baker went 24/28 against Denver,with a depleted ram receiving group. Talent has a way of revealing itself at the qb position when the right oc is in place.
April 1st, 2023 at 1:52 pm
Jameis Winston 2.0.
April 1st, 2023 at 1:56 pm
“If Mayfield gags like he did in Carolina, the Bucs move on and draft a quarterback next year. No harm, no foul.” – Joe
Here’s my big issue…in order for him to ‘gag’, it will make the WRs look bad too. So next year, if we need free agents (we will), they’ll have the impression that we suck at WR.
April 1st, 2023 at 2:02 pm
R.O. Says:
“Remove all the dump passes to RB for Drew Brees and and check his completion %”
So long as we remove them from Baker as well.
April 1st, 2023 at 2:12 pm
Mayfield is no bueno. We have seen him now on 3 teams and should know what we are getting. He probably was the best of the options on the market. He is capable of good games, but it’s far more likely to get poor performances from him. He has a whole bunch of swagger. I guess that counts for something. Joe is doing a pretty good sales pitch overall for Baker.
April 1st, 2023 at 2:56 pm
Wow, sounds like Jameis stats. Ugh.
April 1st, 2023 at 2:57 pm
“He’s got winning playoff experience”
He has a 1-1 playoff record in 8 seasons. Please stop hyping what sux.
April 1st, 2023 at 3:20 pm
If he can pass for 5000 yards like Jameis did, I’ll take 15 interceptions
April 1st, 2023 at 3:28 pm
Dude had OBJ & Landry as others have pointed out.
LOL. I can’t believe the hype over Mayfield.
But oh yeah… “Leadership!”
April 1st, 2023 at 4:07 pm
Well, I looked up the career completion percentage of a SB winning QB, multiple SB wins, four to be exact. We all know, and remember, and love Terry Bradshaw, the guy who was supposedly too stupid to play QB in the NFL. The guy who couldn’t spell cat if you spotted him the C and the A, and gave him nine tries. So, what was it? It was a whopping, sit down and be ready, 51.9%! Hall of Fame stats!! And, how about another SB winning QB. He played for the Bucs, and is widely considered to be the worst QB to ever win a SB. Any guesses? Ah yes, that super star of QBs, Trent Dilfer. What was his career completion percentage? Ta-ta, 55.9%! So, I guess this means if Todd Bowles gets really busy and motivated, and installs a 2000 Ravens defense for the Bucs, well then, Baker has a good chance of winning a SB.
April 1st, 2023 at 4:34 pm
^^^^ good grief, talk about cover …it’s like the liberal media covering for Biden.
Looking for a way to polish that turd. Had to reach way back to find those 2 gems that are the exception and not the rule.
April 1st, 2023 at 4:37 pm
First off, completion percentage is a very very stupid stat, because it doesn’t take into account he offense that is being ran. If you want a high completion percentage, well, just run a bunch of short routes, and on 3rd and long, just toss a 3 yard pass to your running back.
Second off, instead of complaining about Bakers completion percentage, just go watch his tape from the last 2 years. He stinks. His completion percentage is probably that low because not only is he literally a bad QB, he gets a ton of passes knocked down at the LOS because he’s 5′ 7″.
But focusing on completion percentage is just dumb. If you run Arians deep ball offense and you’re chucking it deep all the time, guess what, you’re going to have a lower completion percentage than Jeff Garcia throwing 2 yard passes in Grudens short passing game offense. But guess which offense actually scored points, and which one didn’t?
April 1st, 2023 at 4:44 pm
Brazen Zebra – That’s an argument I would have made in I was 15 and didn’t know any better.
But one very very basic about NFL passing stats, you absolutely can not directly compare passing stats from different eras. Changes to the rules have made it massively easier for today’s WRs to get off the line, and pass interference is called a lot more, so corners play more passively. Also, because you can’t really destroy the QB anymore, they’ll stand in the pocket longer knowing they’re unlikely to get blindsided. Finally, most offenses run a lot of screens and throw a lot more short passes, in part to supplement the old running game. All of these add up to great inflated passing stats, in particular completion percentage.
April 1st, 2023 at 5:40 pm
The only reason he led the league in interceptions since 2018 is because Winston got benched.
April 1st, 2023 at 5:58 pm
[Actually there is not. Feel to free to look at Mayfield’s stats. — Joe]. When Mayfield had a healthy offensive line in 2020 he got them to within one play of the Super Bowl. 2021 was a wash because of the irresponsible decision to try to play with a torn labrum. Plus most of the regular starting offensive line was injured so they were using backups. If you give him a decent system he will do fine. Since his rookie season he has never been allowed to throw the ball downfield to spread the offense, until the Rams picked him up last year.
April 1st, 2023 at 11:03 pm
Mayfield is a winner, he brought browns back to live, relifted the entire city, made browns popular, brought tons of fans with him, the problem wasn’t baker at qb, its ownership (mostly) and management, you could bring in brady, or homies to cleveland and i promise you’d have the same outcome, and remember only one other qb in nfl history passed for more yards in their first 3 years other than baker-faker, and that was marino, baker in a gunner, bucs took a smart move getting him, other than that, I’ve never really liked baker, and Im a born in-state die hard sooner fan, go bucs!
April 2nd, 2023 at 12:09 am
I don’t get the Bucs sometimes. We’ve never drafted a guy that we’ve signed to a second contract. You draft corners and o lineman every year. They should do the same every year until they find the guy. You can be horrible and wait until next year but it’s easy to see us striking out again because that’s what this team does. Just draft one until you find they guy
April 2nd, 2023 at 7:32 am
Mayfield is trash. It’s embarrassing that’s he’s our QB
April 2nd, 2023 at 9:36 am
Jameis is better than Baker…An aurgmnet could be made that Baker had just as many if not more weapons than Jameis had as a starter…
I know Baker played for a run first team in Cleveland; but between the ints, hovering around 60% for completions, and only about 3000 yds passing per in a league set up for QBs to put up big numbers proves Baker is flirting with the Bust label…Jameis obviously threw his fair share of ints but at least he gave you way more yards…
I’m just trying to keep an open minded with this Baker Mayfield signing because there’s nothing to get excited about; I never understood the media love affair with Mayfield…Hopefully Kyle runs away with the job…I have no desire to see Baker under center for my team; he’s a certified dud…
April 2nd, 2023 at 10:11 am
Lol. Baker has had weapons! Chubb, OBJ, Nikou, and Landry. That narrative is completely false!
April 2nd, 2023 at 12:25 pm
and he always seemed to have a pretty good receivers room
April 2nd, 2023 at 12:26 pm
remember freddie kitchens…the wizard of scrambled eggz 🙂
April 2nd, 2023 at 1:24 pm
Rand. Rand J. That you??
April 3rd, 2023 at 8:22 am
TD to INT ratio is what most people look at first. BTW thats one reason why Jammeis is not here anymore. That and the Pick sixes.
April 3rd, 2023 at 6:46 pm
Check this PFF chart for 2022. Mayfield had 7% of his passes dropped because of receiver errors. He had 29 balls dropped by receivers, 3rd most in the league. He can throw fine. What he can’t do is catch his own passes. Sometimes he throws hard into tight windows. Cleveland receivers couldn’t catch these except for Jarvis Landry. Perfect example, Jacoby Brisette is on this list, also with 7% drops by Cleveland receivers.