Panthers QB Baker Mayfield jokes about getting taller, prepares for Week 2 vs. Giants
Three days after the Carolina Panthers’ opening-day loss, the wounds had healed enough that quarterback Baker Mayfield could joke about it.
Mayfield’s uneven performance in the Panthers’ 26-24 loss to Cleveland included directing Carolina to 17 fourth-quarter points. But it also featured him getting five balls tipped or batted down at the line.
When asked about what he could do to rectify that Wednesday, Mayfield quipped: “Lay on an inverted table a little bit. Stretch out. Get taller. Thanks, Mom and Dad.”
Listed at 6-foot-1, Mayfield doesn’t have prototypical NFL quarterback size. Of course, QBs compensate for that all the time if they are good enough in other phases of the game: Drew Brees, Kyler Murray and Russell Wilson are all shorter than Mayfield.
Mayfield’s eventful first outing with the Panthers also included four botched snaps, three 75-yard touchdown drives, one TD pass, one TD run and one interception. He was a bit of a wrecking ball in Week 1, knocking down or dropping things that he should and that he shouldn’t.
Now comes Week 2, on the road against a New York Giants team that is 1-0 and that whipped Carolina 25-3 in one of the more embarrassing Panther losses of 2021 (Sam Darnold had nine drives, scored three points, gave away two by throwing the ball away in the end zone and got benched for PJ Walker). The noise level around Mayfield is decidedly lower this week; no longer is he playing his former team in the first game of the year.
“In terms of distractions and specific questions, yeah, it’s more of just, ‘Get back into the routine,’ ” Mayfield said of this week of preparation.
Mayfield can be blunt with his critiques, especially with himself. He said of the offense: “We laid an egg in the first half.”
And after watching the film, he was critical of the jittery nature he displayed in the pocket early.
Said Mayfield: “For me, I think it was B.S. the way I was not settled in with my feet in the first half, how I was creating my own pressure, moving around and not trusting (his blockers). The trust factor just has to be there.”
For all that, Carolina had three separate 75-yard touchdown marches in the game, and a drive to a go-ahead field goal late that would have been celebrated as the game-winner had Carolina’s defense done its job after that.
Mayfield reminded me of a lot of bad Panther quarterbacks over the years in the first half.
In the second half, though, he reminded me of former Panther quarterback Jake Delhomme.
This thought had been put into my mind by Delhomme himself in our earlier interview, where he had said of the similarities between himself and Mayfield: “Will he roll the dice a little bit on the play? You’re damn right. And I was the same way. I’ve played with quarterbacks who would rather look at the stat sheet and be 17 for 24 for 206 and a touchdown and lose 17 to 10. And I never understood that. I played with a couple of guys that played 10 years in the NFL. They were never great starters. They were talented, but they didn’t want to make a mistake. And OK, there’s something to be said for that. But if you want to win, you’ve got to take a chance.”
Mayfield took some chances that paid off, hitting on pass plays of both 50 yards and 75 yards in the game. And the resemblance between his first game as a Panther and Delhomme’s first game as a Panther in 2003 was striking, especially in the second half.
For example:
▪ In both games, Delhomme and Mayfield led the Panthers to 17 fourth-quarter points.
▪ In both games, the QBs led a go-ahead drive that resulted in Carolina taking a 24-23 lead in a raucous Bank of America Stadium with less than 90 seconds left.
▪ In both games, the opponent then drove the ball down the field far enough to have a long field-goal try to win it at the end.
The difference? Against Jacksonville, Mike Minter blocked the 55-yard field-goal attempt and Carolina won. Against Cleveland, rookie kicker Cade York boomed in a 58-yarder, and Carolina lost.
In the second half against the Browns, Mayfield started to find angles with his throws, and the tipped passes weren’t as much of a problem. But it has been a bugaboo for him. In Cleveland, according to ESPN, Mayfield’s 44 passes batted down at the line from 2018-2021 were the NFL’s most in that time period.
Still, you could tell teammates and fans started to believe in Mayfield in that final quarter. Now, though, he has to win. Carolina has lost eight straight games, dating back to last season. Mayfield wasn’t a part of the first seven, but he’s aware of the statistic.
“You use the pain that everybody’s gone through as motivation,” Mayfield said.
Between that, the inverted table and the stretching exercises, maybe the Panthers will grow a little taller this week. They’d better.
Because an 0-2 start in the NFL? That’ll shrink your fan base in a hurry.
This story was originally published September 14, 2022 at 5:26 PM with the headline "Panthers QB Baker Mayfield jokes about getting taller, prepares for Week 2 vs. Giants."
