It was easy to be down on Jalen Mayfield last year. One of the worst guards in the NFL, Mayfield regularly let up sacks and was one of the major (if far from the only) reasons the offense ground to a halt so often in 2021. Fans were clamoring to replace him by Week 2, and many were ready to pat the dirt down on his days as a starting guard by season’s end.
It was the mixture of awful games and poorly-aged confidence that drove a lot of it. In further proof that you should never make forward-looking statements on social media, Mayfield declared before the NFL Draft in 2021 that “if you don’t want your quarterback hit, take me.