00:00Joe, the MVP conversation, you know, now that we're, you know,
00:04a little bit deeper in, you're starting to see who's emerging.
00:07And there are some of that you have been a team even a bit as well,
00:11but a player that you said needs more credit, needs more respect.
00:15And that's Baker Mayfield.
00:17And Baker Mayfield has never been given more respect in the market.
00:20He was actually all the way up to the second best odds to win league MVP.
00:23And then Mahomes had a four total touchdown game, you know, on Sunday night.
00:27So that shifted things a little bit, but under five to one,
00:30it's a clear top three, you know, in the market right now.
00:34How do you feel about Baker Mayfield when we're talking league's MVP?
00:37Love him and deserving.
00:38I mean, we, you know, and my argument was not just this year.
00:42It was in recent, you know, previous years as well,
00:45because of the success of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and just winning division titles,
00:50making it to the playoffs, knocking off some of the better teams,
00:53like the Philadelphia Eagles a couple of years ago in a playoff type of setting
00:57and still not giving the love of some of the other quarterbacks like Justin Herbert
01:01or some of the others in the market that didn't even do anything from a playoff perspective.
01:07And Baker, all he does is win.
01:09And now they're five and one.
01:11And now he's not doing it with, oh, Mike Evans and Chris Godwin.
01:15He's not doing it with McMillan and Nabucco that was out yesterday.
01:18He's doing it with Tess Johnson, a rookie, and a bunch of backups that they just put together
01:24in a match unit, and all Baker's doing, baby, is he's cooking like he was in Norman.
01:29Now, listen, it took him a while to get to this point, but I credit his progression,
01:34his maturity, not giving up, believing in himself because he went to Carolina.
01:40He started in Cleveland.
01:41And looking where he's progressed, he got a win for Sean McVay on a Monday night
01:46against Las Vegas where they scraped him off the street for the Rams, right?
01:50All he does is perform now at an elite level.
01:53He's going to be potentially a 5,000-yard passer this year.
01:57Yeah, last year Baker threw for 4,500 on the nose.
01:59I know.
02:00And his number this year was only like 4,000.
02:03I know.
02:04I know, but I'm saying if it was Burrow, if it was Josh Allen, it wouldn't be the case.
02:11I got you.
02:12So here's the interesting thing for Baker,
02:14where right now, again, just the catch-all metrics, none of them are perfect.
02:20I like to use them for point of reference, right?
02:22Passer rating, QBR, pro football focus grade.
02:25He doesn't rank first in any of them.
02:28But what Baker has going for him because of that, Joe, is all of these injuries.
02:36It's an NBA-esque argument that is building for Baker Mayfield of look who is around him, right?
02:45Look who he is elevating here.
02:47And what's going to happen is Baker's going to play a lot of this season.
02:53I think it is almost now a certainty.
02:55He will play more games without at least one of a Mecca, Godwin, and Evans than with all the three of them.
03:01He might play more games than not with two of that trio missing.
03:05I mean, they've already ruled out Godwin for Week 7, which, you know, I mean—
03:09No Bucky Irvin yesterday.
03:11I mean, come on.
03:12So for Baker, that is a huge part of the candidacy.
03:19He also plays the game the way people want it to be played.
03:23That is not a slight—it's just true.
03:25Right.
03:25People want gunslingers.
03:26People want guys to throw the football around at the quarterback position, and that's exactly what Baker Mayfield is doing.
03:33And he has had a lot of almost turnovers, but they haven't come in yet, so that leads to 12 touchdowns to one interception.
03:41And the other thing that Baker has right now going for him, Joe—you know, I've said this to you a hundred times.
03:47I'll say it to you a hundred more.
03:48This team is the biggest favorite of any team to win their division.
03:51This team has a runout to potentially grab a one or a two seed, and wins and the record, the seed has mattered as much as anything, as anything in MVP races in the last decade plus.
04:07And for Baker, for the South, it's still not great.
04:11He is going to have himself a real shout here to finish with 13 wins.
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