Analytics screamed "Baker Mayfield to the Browns at No. 1 overall" all draft season, and it actually happened ... ironic for Cleveland's new front office that's loaded with "old-school football guys," a group hired to run counter to the Sashi Brown-led, analytics-predicated decision-making department of old. 

The reigning Heisman winner was historically efficient at Oklahoma, particularly in his redshirt senior season when he completed 70.5 percent of his passes at a ridiculous 11.5 yards per attempt with 43 touchdown strikes and six interceptions. 

The big question: Will Mayfield's collegiate production fully translate to the professional game?

I'll start with this: I have no concerns about his arm strength or accuracy to any level of the field -- especially where it matters most, in the short and intermediate ranges. While impossible to get inside his head when "processing" what he sees coverage-wise, Mayfield did flash the ability to get to secondary reads while at Oklahoma.

My lone concern with Mayfield on the Browns centers around his lack of experience sustaining the positive facets of his game -- pinpoint accuracy, good ball velocity, etc. -- while dealing with pressure inside the pocket.

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Look, the vast majority of NFL (starting) quarterbacks can hit an open receiver from a clean pocket. Most can identify coverages and react accordingly, choosing the right spot to throw the football much more often than not.

But the elite quarterbacks separate themselves from the mediocre ones with pocket presence, what I believe to be an innate ability to stay calm under pressure and subtly drift away from it inside to the pocket to buy more time for receivers to get open or to get to a third or fourth read.

Mayfield isn't brutal in this area. I just don't think he's very experienced doing it after spending most of his career at Oklahoma unscathed by weak Big 12 pass-rushes that rarely penetrated the Sooners' overpowering offensive line. And, while he did improvise under duress to generate a handful of big plays while ad-libbing, that freestyling is rarely sustainable in the NFL even for the physical specimens or athletic freaks at the position, and Mayfield is neither of those.  

Take note of his performance in the Rose Bowl against a super-talented Georgia defense.


CompletionsAttemptsYards/Air YardsTD/INTSacks

1st Half

13

18

200/74

2/0

1

2nd Half + OT

8

14

82/34

1/1

3

Per Pro Football Focus, Mayfield was sacked 23 times in 2017... and he was deemed responsible for 11 of those takedowns. Also, according to PFF, the Browns offensive line surrendered 191 pressures on 697 drop backs in 2017, a figure that included 28 sacks. That drop-back-per-sack rate was the eighth-worst in the NFL a season ago, and the unit's drop-back-per-pressure rate of 28.1 percent was the 13th-highest in pro football.

Now, Spencer Drango, the biggest blocking liability from 2017, likely won't be on the field nearly as much -- if at all -- in 2018. Then again, future Hall of Famer Joe Thomas definitely won't be. He'll likely be replaced by Austin Corbett, the Browns' first pick in the second round, who many believed would shift inside to guard at the pro level. 

The RPO Plan

Much of the extent of Mayfield's success in the NFL is in the hands of new Browns offensive coordinator Todd Haley. He must incorporate many RPOs into Cleveland's offense to shorten the learning curve for his new quarterback. 

Oklahoma's 2017 scheme was the most creative attack I've ever watched, a dizzying array of misdirection, fake blocks, motion, backfield options, and intricate screens. Mayfield had a firm grasp of the controlled chaos as it unfolded, which often left linebackers and defensive backs clueless as to where the ball was headed. 

The Sooners' offense masterfully used defenders' keys against them, the core concept of run-pass options. Offensive linemen would often pull or show "low hats" -- helmets down, not up -- classic run-play indicators, which would draw linebackers toward the line of scrimmage, leading to huge voids at the intermediate range in the middle of the field. Fullbacks would sell lead blocks, only to morph into pass-catchers as they approached second-level defenders. The increasingly popular RPOs with inside or outside zone in one direction and a variety of route combinations on the other side of the field were staples of the Oklahoma attack, and those plays often resulted in big gains down the field. 

While those innovative plays weren't the sole reason Mayfield dominated in 2017, Lincoln Riley's futuristic offense undoubtedly aided the quarterback's gigantic statistical output.  

The more creative Haley's offense is, the better. If Mayfield simply catches shotgun snaps in spread formations and is asked to stoically examine the field from the pocket, he will not be the same signal-caller we saw in college. He thrives with play-action, half-rolls, and bootlegs. Easy completions on RPOs must be a steady part of the game plan each week, even if Mayfield has to get the ball out quickly from different arm angles. He's tremendous doing that. 

As is always the case, the personnel a quarterback has at his disposal is integral and, on paper, with Josh Gordon, Jarvis Landry, Corey Coleman, David Njoku, Carlos Hyde, and Nick Chubb, Mayfield seemingly has been provided a quality skill-position group in Cleveland. 

Like the pass-catchers at Oklahoma, not only consistently creating separation but routinely accumulating a hefty amount of yards after the catch will be vital. 

Per PFF, Landry averaged 4.7 yards after the catch per reception last year, which ranked 37th out of all the receivers who took at least 25 percent of their respective team's snaps. Coleman averaged just 1.2 yards after the catch per reception, the second-lowest out of those 117 wideouts. Gordon, who is half-man, half-robot, averaged a whopping 6.3 yards after the catch per reception a season ago but didn't play enough snaps to qualify. Tight end Seth DeValve averaged 5.2 YAC/reception (32nd) and Njoku averaged 3.7 YAC/reception (42nd). 

Both Mayfield and Ben Roethlisberger -- Haley's quarterback in 2017 -- had right around 50 percent of their passing yards come via yards after the catch last season, so the veteran play-caller clearly knows how to get the ball to athletes in space. 

Because of the relatively strong offensive line -- which is likely to experience some post-Joe Thomas growing pains -- and a nice assortment of pass-catching options, Mayfield actually landed in an environment rather conducive to success, especially compared to some recent iterations of the Browns.

But his coordinator must keep things "progressive" on offense to give Mayfield reads he's accustomed to checking post-snap -- linebacker location being a fundamental one. Play-action must be a frequently utilized. In 2017, per Sports Info Solutions, Mayfield went 137 of 187 for 2,532 yards with 26 touchdowns and no picks on play-action. Ridiculous. Also according to Sports Info Solutions, Roethlisberger went 35 of 54 for 345 yards with four scores and no interceptions on play-action, but those plays accounted for 12.2 percent of his completions, 13.3 percent of his attempts, and just 7.4 percent of his total yardage. 

Managing the pocket for the duration of the play structure -- even if pressure mounts -- is one aspect of Mayfield's game he must sharpen to live up to the billing as the No. 1 pick in the 2018 draft.