Sean McVay could be the last, best hope to turn around Baker Mayfield

McVay worked his magic with two former No. 1 picks, could Mayfield be third?

Following weeks of poor performance, benching, a spot start and re-benching, Baker Mayfield asked for and received his release from the Carolina Panthers. The former No. 1 pick and assumed franchise savior for the Browns will now join the Rams, reportedly the only team to put in a waiver claim for his services.

This wasn’t totally unexpected, as draft crushes die hard, and McVay had serious interest in Mayfield coming out of college.

Jeff Darlington @JeffDarlington

I’ll never forget a few months ago standing with McVay as he passionately told Baker if he didn’t have his “ride or die” in Goff, he would’ve done whatever it took to convince Rams to get him. It didn’t feel like hyperbole. That was first inclination Baker would climb very high.

What this means for the quarterback position and future of the Rams’ franchise is likely “not much”. There is some concern about the long-term future of Matthew Stafford after he suffered multiple, serious concussions that could sideline him for the rest of 2022. There is also some buzz about a possible Stafford retirement, which superficially doesn’t make a ton of sense for a 34-year-old who signed a four-year, $140 million extension last offseason. At the same time, Stafford is a bit older in NFL-years. He’s entering his 15th season in 2023 and ranks 12th all-time in pass attempts (7,128), trailing only Tom Brady, Matt Ryan and Aaron Rodgers among active players.

The question then turns to the salvagability (not a word) of Baker Mayfield’s career. Mayfield has the perception of an analytics darling, which yours truly has contributed to through the years. But the forecasts for Mayfield’s NFL success weren’t born from “misleading” advanced metrics, like EPA per play.

Mario Puig @ThePostingScout

Given that EPA identified Mayfield as one of the league's eight (five?) best quarterbacks, is some reflection not in order for the people who push the metric? If to them it's not just a roundabout way to reallocate RB production credit to QBs, what else did it accomplish here?

Ian Rapoport @RapSheet

Sources: The #Panthers are expected to release QB Baker Mayfield. He'll hit waivers when it's finalized later today.

It’s fair to say that Mayfield was someone favored by analytics types, and analytics types favor EPA, so the transitive property would lead you to believe that Mayfield had a strong EPA profile. Yet, Mayfield has never looked particularly good by EPA efficiency. He was an incredibly efficient college quarterback, with his final season at Oklahoma ranking fourth all-time in adjusted yards per attempt. But at the next level, Mayfield has only been in the top-10 for EPA per dropback once (2020: ninth) and outside of the top-20 every other year (20th, 21st, 23rd and 33rd in 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2022, respectively).

Using my Bayesian updating model for forecasting EPA per play, which accounts for sample size and draft prior and adjusts for NFL evidence, Mayfield’s forecasted “best guess” EPA efficiency after two seasons was the same as a then “struggling” Josh Allen, well below that of Lamar Jackson (not even accounting for rushing value), and only marginally better than Sam Darnold’s.

PFF grading was where Mayfield shined, starting his career seasonal ranking of 10th, 16th and eighth, before falling out of the top-20 the last two years. My previous forecasts for Mayfield combined both, which led to more optimistic assessments for his career outlook than EPA alone would project.

This season, Mayfield’s EPA go-forward Bayesian forecast dipped below the 50th percentile for “franchise” passers, which isn’t the highest bar, as it includes all passers since 1999 with at least 1,000 dropbacks (uninspiring quarterback like Brandon Weeden, Matt Moore and Brock Osweiler are in that cohort). The hope that came with the arrival of Kevin Stefanski 2020 and his only strong efficiency season has now dissipated.

Stefanski comes from same, ever-growing Shanahan tree of coaching as McVay, and the latter has worked magic with two former No. 1 picks. Jared Goff had one of the worst rookie seasons in history, looking more like the next Ryan Leaf than a franchise quarterback. The arrival of McVay coincided with a massive jump in Goff’s efficiency to sixth overall the next two seasons.

Stafford had a productive career in raw totals prior to McVay, but his efficiency also got a bump in his first season with the new coach, ranking third in EPA last season after having never been in the top-5 previously.

Using Bayesian updating to compare the equivalent career starts for Goff and Stafford to Mayfield, we see some similarities. Goff’s efficiency jumped in his second season with McVay before leveling off at better-than-average, and Stafford never really broke out until later in his career. Important context is that Stafford was younger than Mayfield in the equivalent seasons, was trending in the right direction by the middle of his fourth year and was arguably on a different level of talent.

Even if McVay is able to sprinkle some magic quarterback dust on Mayfield as he did for Stafford and Goff, it might not be enough with the current state of the Rams offensive line. Friend of the substack Ben Baldwin has been tracking the shockingly strong correlation between pass blocking and quarterback play for the Rams since McVay’s arrival, hinting that Mayfield will likely struggle, at least for the rest of this season, no matter what McVay brings to the table.

The most likely outcome here is Mayfield struggles, assuming he even plays, but shows some flashes of success. That could be enough to convince the Rams to give him a cheaper, prove-it deal for next year. Mayfield won’t have a lot of suitors outside of the Rams, which will be enough motivation to take what he can, and try to turn around his career with a coach who has done it multiple times before.