Every top quarterback is a potential target for the Denver Broncos in the offseason, and Oklahoma’s brash Baker Mayfield certainly qualifies.
Mayfield, an energetic, upbeat and fiery player who walked on twice in college — and won the Heisman Trophy last week — has been scrutinized for his height, his attitude and just about everything else.
ESPN’s Zubin Mehenti joined Renaud Notaro and Dan Jacobs of Mile High Sports AM 1340 | FM 104.7 and suggested that if the Broncos were to draft Mayfield, they’d need to accept him ‘as-is’. While Mayfield may have flaws in certain areas, trying to change him like so many teams have with their young quarterbacks in the past (See Tim Tebow for a recent example in Denver) may not be the right move.
“Sometimes you are who you are, and trying to change someones DNA is a dangerous thing,” Mehenti said. “I think there’s a lot of arguments to be made that trying change somebody can be changing them for the better. But I think when you’re talking about some of the intangibles with him, some of the stuff at Kansas [where Mayfield made an obscene gesture this fall] is going to get people angry.”
“When you’re a two-time walk on, given up by everyone, you’re the first [quarterback] to ever to start in a Power 5 conference as a true freshman walk-on [at Texas Tech] — nobody has ever done that before — then they give up on you, you go to Oklahoma without a scholarship, and you perhaps end your career as a definite Heisman Trophy winner, and as a national champion? That’s a pretty good stage exit.”
Mehenti says that because of that past — going from walk-on to Heisman winner — changing him may not give you the same type of player he is today.
“If you can go from the depth of two-time walk-on, to that… I think if they tried to modify him, or change him, or round him out, or smooth out his rough edges — strange as it sounds, I don’t think you get the type of player you have today.”
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