KRYK: How heroic Baker Mayfield might have just saved his career

Let’s start with this. What Baker Mayfield somehow accomplished Thursday night — quarterbacking a Los Angeles Rams team he’d joined only two days earlier to victory over the Las Vegas Raiders with outsized, late-game, dramatic, historic heroism — was not “unbelievable.”

Because if anything happened, it is, by definition, believable. “Unbelievable” is the most over-used, and inappropriate, superlative in sportsdom.

But fantastic? Jaw-dropping? Dream-worthy? Unprecedented?

In-frickin’-credible?

Oh yeah. All those things, and more.

That any pro quarterback discarded by his team on a Monday afternoon could be claimed on a Tuesday afternoon, fly cross-country, get only 20 practice throws in on a Wednesday afternoon, all told have only 48 hours to digest his new team’s complex offensive schemes and plays and attendant critical, dense terminology, then on a Thursday night not only attempt all of his new team’s throws in a prime-time showcase game, and not only not embarrass himself or his club in the process, but expertly engineer two long, late touchdown drives with crisp throw after crisp throw, and wise decision after wise decision — the last drive covering 98 yards in eight plays that used up all but 10 seconds of the remaining 1:45 — to breathtakingly snatch a 17-16 victory from seeming certain defeat, and end a six-game L.A. losing streak, would, well, seem as miraculous as this sentence is long.

Indeed, “unbelievable.”

But it happened. And Baker Mayfield made it happen.

For real. And it is, to be sure, one of the most hard-to-believe things any of us likely will ever see on a pro football field.

It happened amid the same days and weeks that some NFL quarterbacks, such as even Tom Brady in Tampa Bay and Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay, are getting peppered with criticisms — that if only they’d not passed on weeks of voluntary spring practices, or would stop taking Wednesdays off during the season, or whatever, then maybe they’d have more chemistry and familiarity with their receivers to be able to pull out more late-game victories.

Mayfield, though, had 20 throws — ever — with all of his team’s active receivers before Thursday’s game. And succeeded epically down the stretch. Against one of the NFL’s better pass-covering defences. Insane.

That Mayfield is the quarterback here only adds to this spectacle.

If you can name any other pro athlete who, in any one year, was force-fed more humble pie than this 27-year-old, do tell.

He went from being the uber-cocky prospect at the February 2018 NFL Scouting Combine who brazenly announced “I’m going to be the best to ever play” quarterback in the NFL; who anointed himself the Cleveland Browns’ franchise saviour even before that club drafted him No. 1 overall in April 2018; who within months gobbled up national TV-commercial endorsements as though he already were Peyton Manning — to eventually bombing out on the field by last season, despite being limited by a slew of injuries that probably would have sidelined any less courageous player.

This calendar year, before Thursday night, was nothing but a series of effective salt throwings at all the open wounds of Mayfield’s pride.

For the first 11 months and one week of 2022, he’d been the NFL’s biggest punch line, shamed in the league’s shop window probably as publicly as any player ever has, and certainly more than any former No. 1 overall draft pick. Even the Incredible Bust, Tony Mandarich, had to have been wincing at Mayfield’s dual free-falls from stardom and respect, made worse by everybody’s pointing and laughing.

This past winter the Browns let Mayfield dangle for three months, as to whether the club really wanted him back in 2022. He and the rest of the world simultaneously learned it, in fact, did not in undenied news leaks announcing the Browns were hard pursuing a trade for Houston’s shame-averse, serial massage arranger Deshaun Watson.

It took the Browns four months to find a club willing to part with a lowly Day 3 draft pick for the shamed Mayfield — the lowly Carolina Panthers.

If any team in the league needed an upgrade at QB it was the Panthers. Yet after Mayfield quickly shot up to starter early in August training camp, he performed no better than the team’s other QB discards, Sam Darnold and PJ Walker.

After suffering a leg injury in October, Mayfield got only one other start with the Panthers, a 13-3 loss at Baltimore three weeks ago in which Mayfield completed only 55% for 196 yards and two interceptions. Bad stuff.

On Monday, Mayfield hit rock bottom, when he apparently learned just before the rest of us did that interim Panthers head coach Steve Wilks had decided to relegate him to third-string, behind Darnold and Walker — meaning he wouldn’t even dress for games. Mayfield requested he be waived, in the hope other clubs would fight for his services via the waiver wire on Tuesday.

The Panthers obliged him. But only one team put in a claim, the Rams, whose playoff hopes are practically kaput, whose star starting passer Matthew Stafford is done for the season with a spinal-cord bruise, and whose top backup, John Wolford, has been battling a limiting neck injury for weeks.

Reports Wednesday and Thursday said Mayfield had digested enough of the Rams’ offence to maybe even play a bit against the Raiders.

As it happened, Wolford started but didn’t throw a pass in L.A.’s opening three-and-out.

When Mayfield replaced him on the next possession, with 2:22 left in the opening quarter, the Raiders already led 10-0. On Mayfield’s first snap he dropped back and hit top available Rams wideout Van Jefferson for 21 yards. That and a Mayfield scramble for six yards set up a Matt Gay 55-year-old field goal.

Mayfield in for good. Game on.

When Vegas went up 16-3 with 12:20 left, probably millions of TVs in North America either changed channels or were turned off for the night. Mayfield, though, was just firing up.

On a 17-play, 75-yard TD drive that ate up 9:01 of the fourth quarter, Mayfield hit on 10-of-13 short passes for 61 yards.

After a meek Las Vegas three-and-out, and trailing 16-10, Mayfield and the Rams got the ball on their own two-yard line with 1:45 left, and no timeouts. All Mayfield needed to do was march the team 98 yards and score a touchdown to win it. That’s all.

After a Mayfield interception was nullified by a defensive pass-interference penalty, and after a sack of Mayfield similarly was negated by a Las Vegas penalty (unsportsmanlike conduct), the Rams got the ball at their 28 with 1:20 left. In a flash, seemingly, they scored the winning TD:

• Mayfield dropped a dime, deep right, into the hands of streaking receiver Ben Skowronek, between two clawing defenders, for a 32-yard gain to the Las Vegas 40, clock ticking.

• No huddle, hurry-up, 56 seconds left. Mayfield hit running back Malcolm Brown in bounds for nine, clock ticking.

• No huddle, hurry-up, 33 seconds left. Mayfield hit Skowronek in bounds for eight, to the Vegas 23, clock ticking.

• Hurry-up, spike, 16 seconds left, clock stopped.

• After huddling, Mayfield then perfectly hit sprinting Jefferson in the end zone, against man coverage down the left side, for one of the holy-fire-truck-ingest of all last-moment winning touchdowns, ever.

“You can’t say enough about Baker Mayfield and the leadership, the resilience, the competitiveness — and what a quick study,” Rams head coach Sean McVay said afterward. “He just got here five minutes ago and figured out a way to do some special things tonight.

“On a short week, him coming in, you can only cover so much. So it was impressive. But football’s football. This guy’s a competitor. He’s a gamer. So many great plays by a lot of guys tonight, and Baker led the way.”

It had been 45 years since an NFL team marched as many as 98 yards for a go-ahead score in the last two minutes.

The last drive alone, then, was incomparable. Even more so, Mayfield’s historic lack of prep time.

For instance, an example this century that comes somewhat close to this occurred in 2013. It was on a Monday night in mid-October when QB Josh Freeman — signed only two weeks earlier — started for the Minnesota Vikings against the New York Giants.

Critics wondered what the hell the Vikings were thinking, throwing in a QB, mid-season, with only 14 days of prep under his belt.

Christian Ponder, Minnesota’s nominal starter in 2013, was out with a ribs injury. His backup, Matt Cassels, was a disappointment. Head coach Leslie Frazier, now Buffalo’s defensive coordinator, must have felt pressure to do something, sorta like Capone’s flustered lawyer at the end of The Untouchables.

Both teams were lousy — the Giants 0-6, the Vikings 1-4. The host Giants wound up winning their first game of the season, and quite easily, 23-7. Minnesota’s only touchdown came on an 86-yard punt return by Marcus Sherels.

Freeman, to quote a Bleacher Report article, “predictably put together 60 minutes of the worst quarterbacking possible.” Under constant pressure, Freeman was as lost looking as any NFL QB you’ll ever see. He finished the game 20-of-53 (38%) for 190 yards and one interception. His longest completion was 22 yards.

Compare that to Mayfield’s heroism, made with but 14% of Freeman’s prep time.

Unbelievable? No. Because it happened.

Can you believe it?

Even Mayfield, Mr. Anti-Humility himself, afterward seemed overwhelmed by it all, effectively shaking his head to every microphone or recorder thrust in his face.

“It’s been a lot of emotions, to be honest with you … but everything happens for a reason. I’m thankful. I just prayed about it and it worked out.

“I don’t know if you can write it any better than that … It’s a pretty damn good story.”

Yes, Baker it is. Especially if it turns out that these epic, whirlwind four days saved your career.

John Kryk writes a weekly newsletter on NFL matters. That’s where you can first see his straight-up picks each week. You can have the newsletter automatically dropped into your email inbox on Wednesdays simply by signing up — for free — at https://torontosun.com/newsletters/

JoKryk@postmedia.com

@JohnKryk