Most incoming rookies, conscious of the fact that they have no control over the process, resist expressing a preferred NFL destination. Baker Mayfield is not like most NFL rookies.
Via TheBigLead.com, Mayfield posted #GetMeToMiami on Instagram during a live event hosted by Dolphins receiver Kenny Stills.
Whether serious or a joke, it’s the kind of thing that the typical prospective draft pick won’t say. Eventually, Mayfield will be selected by one of 32 teams, and the fan base of that team may be reluctant to embrace him if he’s proven based on past words and/or actions that he’s reluctant to embrace the team.
While it’s possible, albeit rare, for a first-round quarterback to engineer his way around being drafted by a team he doesn’t want to play for, it’s much harder to get to the one team he does want to play for. Especially when that team, like the Dolphins, already has a quarterback in whom it believes.
It’s hardly the kind of red flag that will make its way into a scouting report rife with hot takes from anonymous scouts, but it’s the kind of complication that Mayfield simply doesn’t need during the four-month window when the NFL’s robots in training begin to act accordingly.