The Panthers have decided who will start at quarterback less than three weeks before their season opener against the Browns.
Sam Darnold will not be the team’s starting quarterback to start the season, according to coach Matt Rhule’s announcement. Instead, Baker Mayfield will take his place. As a result, Baker Mayfield‘s first game for Carolina will be against his former squad.
“When we started this process, we were looking at three things: Number one, mastery of the offense, number two, situational football excellence, and number three, moving the ball and getting guys involved,” Rhule said. “That’s been our focus all along. Baker has made a lot of improvement, a lot of growth in all three areas in a short amount of time.”
After being traded from Cleveland to Carolina in July, Baker Mayfield came there. With the first overall pick in 2018, the Heisman Trophy winner was selected by the Browns. Over the course of the previous four years, Mayfield participated in 60 games for Cleveland, helping the Browns snap a 17-year playoff drought by leading them to the divisional round in 2020.
During the previous campaign, Baker Mayfield played 14 games and completed 60.5% of his pass attempts for 3,010 yards, 17 touchdowns, and 13 interceptions. He defeated Darnold, who threw for 2,527 yards, nine touchdowns, and 13 interceptions in 12 games during his rookie season with the Panthers.
“All along, we’ve felt like we need to have a really strong quarterback room, and have every quarterback ready to play,” Rhule said. “The reality of this league is most teams will play multiple quarterbacks. Sam has worked incredibly hard, played really well for us during training camp, and will be ready to go if and when it’s needed.”
Table of Contents
Who is Baker Mayfield?
James and Gina Mayfield’s second son, Baker Mayfield, was born on April 14, 1995, in Austin, Texas. While his younger son was in his senior year of high school, James, a private equity consultant, ran into financial issues. The Mayfields were compelled by these hardships to move from one rental property to another and sell their primary residence.
The Oklahoma Sooners were a team that Mayfield grew up rooting for, and he frequently attended their games. Despite James never earning a football letter, his father spent three years playing the sport for the University of Houston.
For the football squad of Lake Travis High School Cavaliers in Austin, Baker Mayfield started as the quarterback. In two seasons, under his leadership, Lake Travis went 25-2 and captured the 2011 4A State Championship. With 6,255 passing yards, 67 passing touchdowns, and eight interceptions, he ended his high school football career.
A 3-star recruit, Mayfield only garnered scholarship offers from Florida Atlantic, New Mexico, North Texas, Rice, Sam Houston State, and Wyoming. He also received preferred walk-on offers from Baylor, Texas Tech, and Washington State despite only receiving minimal recruiting.
Read More On: What To Wear To Topgolf: Best Ways To Look Good
Career
Texas Tech
Former Lake Travis quarterback Michael Brewer had to miss the start of the 2013 season due to a back injury; as a result, Mayfield started in Brewer’s stead.
He was therefore successful in his duties and was recognized as the first true freshman quarterback walk-on to start a season opener at the quarterback position.
Aside from that, his start was unmistakably successful because he immediately broke Billy Joe Tolliver’s record by completing 43 of 60 attempts.
During this time, he also triumphed against SMU (41-23) with 413 yards and four touchdowns. He also came close to breaking Luke McCown’s NCAA Division I FBS single-game record, which was set in the same game but fell just four completions short.
Like Kliff Kingsbury, who won the Big 12 Conference Offensive Player of the Week, he joined that exclusive group of players.
In addition to his 780 yards and seven touchdowns for the season, Mayfield added 755 yards and six additional scores.
After that, he battled with his injury, which led to Davis Webb being brought in to take his position. Unfortunately, Texas Tech went on a continuous five-game losing streak while he was away, and he wasn’t able to return until after the third defeat.
Later, during an interview with ESPN, he made the following claim:
“When I got healthy, I didn’t know why I wasn’t playing right away. At that time, we were losing a couple of games in a row. I was still clueless as to why I wasn’t playing. That was really frustrating for me because I started the first five games, and we won. So, I didn’t really know exactly what he was thinking or what the situation was.”
He continued his season with all of these and finished with 2,315 yards on 218 of 340 completions, 12 touchdowns, and 9 interceptions.
He also claimed the award for Big 12 Conference Freshman Offensive Player of the Year since he did not understand why he could not win it.
In November, he was also chosen as one of the top ten finalists for the Burlsworth Trophy, which is given to the Division I football player who started out as a walk-on.
Sadly, Mayfield stated in December that he was leaving Texas because of “miscommunication” with the coaching staff. Despite being an above-average quarterback, it was revealed that he had not received a scholarship.
Oklahoma
Mayfield claimed that his transfer to the University of Oklahoma in January 2014 was “very unjust” because of the loss of his scholarship.
However, when Texas refuted the charges regarding the scholarship concerns, things turned heated. Due to Big 12 Conference transfer restrictions, Mayfield was forced to miss the 2014 season. However, things did not end there.
According to Big 12 Conference transfer regulations, a player who switches conferences must forfeit a year of eligibility. However, if the old conference issued a statement, as Baker pleaded with Texas Tech to do, they would waive off the year’s tenure; they did not.
Moving forward, Mayfield did not contribute much to the 2014 campaign; at one point, the evening before the game between Oklahoma and Texas Tech, he was even expelled from a Lubbock restaurant.
Cleveland Browns
On July 24, 2018, Mayfield and the Cleveland Browns agreed to a four-year deal with a $32.68 million guaranteed salary. In the first round of the 2018 NFL Draft, Mayfield was chosen.
Everyone still seems to be talking about Mayfield’s play even after the 2018 season has ended. He made his first start of the season in Week 3 on Thursday Night Football against the New York Jets, throwing for more than 200 yards and leading the Browns to victory.
After that, he started playing for the Browns, who then defeated the division foe Baltimore Ravens 12-9 in overtime.
Read More On: Good Leader: 10 Best Qualities You Need To Acknowledge
He took over the league’s passing DVOA lead in Week 10 with a 28-16 victory over the Atlanta Falcons. In the same game, he threw for 216 yards, three touchdowns, a passer rating of 151.2, and no interceptions.
They also defeated the Cincinnati Bengals, describing every game as swaggy, before losing to Houston Texas, and winning again against the Carolina Panthers.
On the one hand, his 26-18 victory over the Cincinnati Bengals earned him AFC Offensive Player of the Week honors for Week 16. He did, however, win the Pepsi NFL Rookie of the Week award for the sixth time.
After that, he proved to be immature by being forced to pay a $10,026 fine for trying to show his privates to Freddie Kitchens, the offensive coordinator for the Browns. Kitchens, though, described it as a private joke between them and Mayfield.
Carolina Panthers
Baker Mayfield was dealt to the Carolina Panthers on July 6, 2022, in exchange for a conditional fifth-round draft pick in 2024.
Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield battled it out to be the team’s starting quarterback. Mayfield was selected as the Panthers’ Week 1 starter for their matchup against the Cleveland Browns on August 22, 2022. Despite a late comeback, Mayfield lost to the Browns 26-24 after throwing for 235 yards, a touchdown, and an interception.
Records & Achievements
The quarterback has received numerous honors despite being a relatively new NFL player. Baker has been nominated for a variety of awards and has also won many of them. During his time in college, he received more than 20 honors, including the Maxwell and Davey O’Brien Awards in 2017.
He was a member of the NFL’s 2018 All-Rooke Team and has won two Rookie of the Year awards from PFT and PFWA. He became the first walk-in player to win the Heisman Trophy in 2017, making history. He is the current owner of the most winning wagers made in a single game by a gambler.
As a result of his accomplishments as a senior in 2017, he also received numerous honors, including the Heisman Trophy, Maxwell Award, Walter Camp Award, and unanimous All-America accolades.
Read More On: Orangetheory 2g vs 3g: Everything You Need to Know About OrangeTheory Before You Join a Class
Body Measurements
Mayfield is a strong athlete who keeps himself in shape. He has ripped muscles. To give an example, he is a large man who measures 6 ft 1 in (1.85 m) tall and weighs 215 lb (98 kg).
He also has a square-shaped face and fair skin tone, which he accents with a fashionable haircut and well-groomed beard.
Not to mention that his eyes and hair are both blacks in tone. His physique dimensions have remained at 40-32-35, and he is said to wear shoes that fit a size 8.
In addition, he has kept up a superb physique thanks to regular training and workouts. In addition, he followed a healthy, balanced diet to stay in shape.
Baker Mayfield Foundation and Charity
Baker Mayfield and his wife Emily Mayfield are well known for taking an active role in assisting the less fortunate. His most well-known charitable endeavor was raising $40,000 for Providence House, a Cleveland-based charity that aids vulnerable families.
Baker performed yet another outstanding act of kindness during a gathering that the Providence House-sponsored. He raised an incredible $100,000 there in just ten minutes to help impoverished kids. Similar to this, Baker collaborated with a different organization, TownHall in Cleveland, during the Covid-19 crisis to give approximately 11,000 meals to ease hunger.
Baker Mayfield Personal Life
The two were frequently seen together in Los Angeles before he wed his present wife, Emily Wilkinson. In June 2018, Baker finally put an end to the speculation and media attention by admitting that he had proposed to Emily.
The wedding took place in Malibu, California, on July 6th of this month. His teachers, friends, family, and a number of celebrities all attended the lavish wedding. His younger brother, a businessman, is in charge of managing the majority of Saker’s business interests.
Read More On: Superfoods: 10 Best Most Nourishing foods
Baker Mayfield’s Net Worth
American professional football player Baker Mayfield has a $12 million dollar net worth. After being selected in the 2018 NFL Draft, Mayfield agreed to a four-year, $32.7 million deal with the Browns, according to Pro Football Network. This included a $21,849,440 signing bonus, according to Spotrac.
According to the website, Mayfield makes an average yearly salary of $8,170,745 and will make $920,000 in basic pay and $4,186,770 in roster bonuses in 2021. He will also have a cap hit of $10,569,130 and a dead cap value of $10,399,130.
