Getty/Panthers Former New York Giants head coach Ben McAdoo ranked Baker Mayfield as the 6th-best QB in the 2018 draft class.
Ladies and gentlemen, former New York Giants head coach Ben McAdoo has done it again.
McAdoo has only been the Carolina Panthers’ offensive coordinator for a few months, and yet he’s already found himself in extremely awkward situations involving each of the team’s top two quarterbacks.
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The first situation came during a press conference back in April, when McAdoo declared Sam Darnold the starting quarterback and then had to backtrack his answer in real time.
“Announcing the quarterback here, I just put my foot in my mouth,” McAdoo said just minutes after the starting QB declaration. “That wasn’t something I should have said.”
That is abundantly obvious now that the Panthers have traded for former Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield. To make matters worse, McAdoo told the New York Post back in 2018 that he ranked Mayfield as the sixth-best quarterback in that year’s draft class — behind Sam Darnold, Josh Allen, Josh Rosen, Lamar Jackson and even Mason Rudolph.
“I didn’t see a lot of pro-style football in his college tape,” McAdoo told the New York Post four years ago. “And if you’re short you have to be able to make up for it some way, somehow, and personally [he] doesn’t do that. I didn’t think he was a great athlete. This guy is kinda like a pocket quarterback that is short and with small hands, that’s what I worry about.”
Mayfield ended up going No. 1 overall in the 2018 NFL Draft and now projects to be McAdoo’s starting quarterback with the Panthers in 2022.
Awkward.
Baker Mayfield’s Harsh 2019 Quote on Daniel Jones Resurfaces
Ben McAdoo isn’t the only one eating his words in the aftermath of the recent trade. Baker Mayfield is doing the same, as a quote he delivered to GQ about Giants quarterback Daniel Jones back in 2019 has resurfaced on social media.
“I cannot believe the Giants took Daniel Jones,” Mayfield told GQ after the 2019 NFL Draft. “Blows my mind. … Some people overthink it. That’s where people go wrong. They forget you’ve gotta win.”
In fairness to Mayfield, Jones has lost a lot more than he has won since entering the NFL (he has a career win-loss record of 12-25). But at least Jones still has a chance to salvage his future and hasn’t been traded away for a mid-round draft pick by the franchise that selected him.
If Jones finally enjoys a breakout year under new head coach Brian Daboll (his third coach in four seasons) and Mayfield struggles with McAdoo in Carolina, you can bet you’ll see this old GQ quote make the rounds quite often during the 2022 season.
Saquon Barkley Stands Alone Among Top 3 Picks in 2018
As much heat as the Giants took for selecting a running back with the No. 2 pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, Saquon Barkley is now the only top-three pick from that class who is still with the team that drafted him. Baker Mayfield (first-overall to the Browns) and Sam Darnold (third-overall to the New York Jets) are now both with the Panthers.
Barkley, like Daniel Jones, still has a chance to turn things around with the Giants in 2022. And if he does, a ton of vocal critics will be pulling a McAdoo/Mayfield and eating their words.