Baker Mayfield: The top rookie quarterback for fantasy

In the 2018 NFL Draft, the Cleveland Browns selected Baker Mayfield with the first overall pick. Was this surprising to you? It wasn’t for us.

Last month, PFF’s Sam Monson laid out his case for Mayfield as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft here, citing how dominant he was on tape and by several different metrics. With Monson doing so much of the tape-based heavy lifting, the deeper statistical dive is an easier one — because Mayfield finished at the top of almost all of our quarterback efficiency metrics. In fact, he’s easily the most statistically dominant quarterback, not only of this draft class, but also of the PFF College era (2014-2017).

If Mayfield was deserving of the first overall pick in the NFL draft, perhaps he also deserves to be selected as the first quarterback off the board in your dynasty fantasy rookie drafts. Here’s the argument:

Mayfield’s college production

A player’s numbers don’t always synch up with what’s on the tape, but in Mayfield’s case they do. Mayfield owns three of our seven highest-graded quarterback seasons since we started grading college prospects in 2014.