Baker Mayfield to the Los Angeles Rams will be interesting if nothing else

The Los Angeles Rams picked up Baker Mayfield and he could start as early as Thursday.

Stop me if you heard this one before, Baker Mayfield has a new team for the 2022 season. It’s not the Cleveland Browns, it’s not the Carolina Panthers, and shockingly, it’s not the San Francisco 49ers. It’s the Los Angeles Rams. There was apparently a lot of interest in Mayfield once he hit the market and the Rams and Sean McVay decided to pick him up to help finish out the season.

The Rams are not in the playoff hunt anymore, so Mayfield’s arrival to the Rams didn’t make a lot of sense. Yet, with Matthew Stafford likely done for the year having suffered multiple concussions, Mayfield has been tapped to run out the clock, so to speak.

While it won’t see Mayfield in the playoffs as the 49ers would have, the Rams gig will allow him to wash off the stink of his time with the Carolina Panthers. A stint that saw him be well-regarded by the coaches, even if his play was abysmal.

The Rams are going to be hoping to start him as soon as Thursday, it looks like, and if that’s the case, they’re going to be asking a lot of the mercurial quarterback.

Baker Mayfield may not play well for the Los Angeles Rams but it’ll be entertaining

Ideally, Mayfield would come in, ball out and get himself a new starting job in 2023. Realistically, unless the Panthers’ coaching staff is the worst in football history, it appears likely that Mayfield may not exactly look his best.

Especially after only three days with the playbook. It seems unlikely he’d be ready but one anonymous AFC offensive coordinator did famously say that Mayfield has a photographic memory;

"And where he’s absolutely amazing is with his recall. Absolutely amazing. You’re calling up plays on his tape, he had a photographic memory: This and this and this is about to happen, and I went over here. You’re like, ‘Wow.’ It’s impressive. As good as I’ve ever seen.”"

So if Mayfield is concentrated and prepared, he may very well take the field on Thursday night, though that still remains highly unlikely. If he does, it may not be the prettiest of outings but with his gun-slinger mentality, he may just make the game more entertaining than it deserves to be.

After all, Mayfield will be more fun to watch than John Wolford.