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Breaking a winless streak of 635 days, Baker Mayfield took over the quarterbacking duties thanks to an unfortunate injury to Tyrod Taylor. A closer look at the play between the two signal callers reveals Mayfield may not be giving the job back any time soon.
According to @numberFire's Net Expected Points model:
Tyrod Taylor: -0.28 points added per drop back, 30.93% Success Rate
Baker Mayfield: 0.39 points added per drop back, 50.00% Success Rate
— JJ Zachariason (@LateRoundQB) September 21, 2018
So far in 2018, Taylor struggled mightily in the role, providing most of his value to the team as a runner (125 rushing yards). Even though it's an extremely small sample, Mayfield's numbers above show that he was truly brilliant in his first regular-season action. For some context around how solid that debut was, among the 35 quarterbacks with 200 or more drop backs in 2017, Jimmy Garoppolo led all passers in Passing Net Expected Points (NEP) per drop back with a mark of 0.35. It was just one game -- well, not even a full game -- but it was a heck of a start.
It's not likely that Mayfield sustains this level of efficiency over the entire season, but he does get a Week 4 matchup with the Raiders, who ranked 19th versus the pass, per our metrics, coming into Week 3. If your quarterback spot needs some help, peep Mayfield.