Baker Mayfield said he believes the Seahawks are his most likely target, but an NFL insider has other thoughts.
Speaking on The Pat McAfee Show, NFL Media’s Ian Rapoport discussed why the Seahawks seemed an unlikely target for the Browns quarterback — despite what Mayfield said on a podcast earlier this week.
“He identified the Seahawks as his likely team,” Rapoport said. “It was a bit of a surprise to me because I didn’t feel the Seahawks were that interested at all. They don’t care that much about the salary. They added Drew Lock, they added [re-signed] Geno Smith, they might draft a quarterback because I know they’ve done a lot of homework. I think they had Desmond Ridder with them on Wednesday.”
Baker Mayfield’s most likely target is the Carolina Panthers, according to an NFL insider. Joe Sargent/Getty Images
Then Rapoport named another NFC team that he thought would be a better match for Mayfield.
“To me, the Carolina Panthers seems like the most likely place for Baker Mayfield, or maybe a cash backup team like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would get him — that would make sense to me.”
It would be very surprising if the Buccaneers added Mayfield. Right now, Tampa has negative cap space, according to Spotrac, and Mayfield has about $19 million to pay next season.
However, the Panthers make a lot of sense from the outside. Before his season-ending shoulder injury, Sam Darnold didn’t rekindle his career in Carolina like the franchise would have hoped. The Panthers went 4-7 in his starts last year.
In addition, the Panthers have some space to accommodate Mayfield.
Earlier this week, the 27-year-old expressed that he feels “disrespected” by the Browns, not necessarily because he’s replaced him with Deshaun Watson – which is part of the deal – but because he’s not transparent in their communications with him was.
Unlike Darnold, Mayfield has led a team to the playoffs in his NFL career, so one would see why the Panthers might consider him an upgrade at the quarterback position.