The NFL pre-season will commence on the 5th of August and the major moves have already been made by teams across the league. The integral positions such as quarterbacks and wideouts have been filled by teams before the commencement of training camp but despite all of this, there are many teams that do not have the best starting QB but are willing to live with the fact. What is surprising is that despite the availability of a solid starter in Baker Mayfield, no team has expressed interest in trading for him.
The Browns traded for Deshaun Watson but at the same time retained Baker Mayfield due to the uncertainty on if Watson will be cleared to play this season or not. In addition to this, the rumors surrounding Baker’s toxic attitude and his inconsistency have led to his stock falling down. In light of this, Colin Cowherd makes a solid argument as to why no team in the league wants to touch I’m.
“If you want to tank, you can tank, teams, can start who they want to start”: Colin Cowherd
At this point in time, the teams who have average quarterbacks are considering tanking for the next draft so that they can develop a QB from scratch which is more beneficial for them. “If you want to get a good pick, you can get a good pick. To me, Baker Mayfield is obviously of the 32 best quarterbacks in football, he can play. He’s not gonna elevate you, he needs people around him but so does Dak (Prescott). Sometimes in business, you need a write-off. If you own 10 businesses and you’re gonna have a big tax bill, sometimes a business is struggling, and it saves you tax dollars,” Colin says.
“Baker is obviously way better than Geno Smith and way better than Drew Lock, it ain’t close but why in the world would Seattle bring in Baker Mayfield? They don’t want to win games, they won’t advertise it but Pete Carroll(Head Coach) has a long contract and so does Jon Snyder(General Manager) so if you fire them, you owe them a big cheque.”
Colin makes sense as not just Seattle, but all teams that have shaky quarterbacks are in somewhat of a rebuilding phase. These teams have at most 2-3 players who are pro bowl caliber but apart from that the squads are relatively average. “There’s gonna be 6 teams in the NFL, the chances of them being good are very rare; Seattle, Atlanta, Houston, Giants, Jets, and Carolina. Either the division is tough or they are not ready,” Colin says.
He believes that the NY Jets will not bail on Zach Wilson as he has immense potential, Seattle is watching this and they know that this means they get a shot at picking an amazing young QB next year in the draft.
“Baker’s better than a lot of guys starting but it is a great college quarterback draft next year, there’s a kid at Kentucky who I think is as good as anybody, C.J. Stroud at OSU, Bryce Young at Alabama, Miami’s got a kid that is pretty interesting. We know all of them cannot be good, but two or three look really interesting,” Colin goes on to show that the teams that are eyeing the QBs in the next draft are making moves and indirectly signaling that they are tanking.
“Seattle knows, Atlanta wants a new QB, they moved off Matt Ryan, the Giants want to see if Brian Daboll can elevate Daniel Jones, Houston, (Davis) Mills may work, Carolina, their owner just wants a new QB,” Colin says.
“Ask yourself, if you ran Seattle, why would you want him? Even if you got Baker, do you really look in that division and think McVay-Stafford, Kyler Murray, you don’t think Baker is that. You want to get a Bryce Young or a C.J. Stroud.” Colin believes that the NFL teams always prefer to look at the bigger picture rather than going season to season.
Sure Baker is better than the starters in three to four teams across the league but these teams will end up winning more games with Baker which means they lose their shot at getting a top-five pick in next year’s NFL draft. What the future holds for Baker still remains a mystery.
