Baker Mayfield’s Shoulder Injury Severely Impacted His Ability To Throw To His Left In 2021
Looking through PFF’s passing by depth and direction tool, you are able to get a real sense for where Baker Mayfield was able to maintain his level of play and where it fell off following his injury. In his standout 2020 campaign, Mayfield was a fairly consistent passer to all directions of the field. When throwing to the left, he was 79-of-112 for 1,014 yards while completing 70.54% of his passes and averaging 9.1 yards per attempt.
He threw 10 touchdowns to the left versus just one interception and his big-time throw rate was 8.9% against a turnover worthy play rate of just 1.8%. He also had weighted PFF grade* of 79.0 on throws to that side of the field.
Bucs QB Baker Mayfield – Photo by: USA Today
When targeting the center of the field, Mayfield was 153-of-208 (73.56% completion rate) for 1,634 yards and seven touchdowns with five interceptions. He averaged 7.9 yards per attempt with a 76.3 weighted PFF grade and six big-time throws to nine turnover worthy plays.
Compare that to his throws to the right side, where he was 73-of-115 for 915 yards. He completed 63.48% of his passes in that direction with a yards per attempt mark of 8.0 with nine touchdowns to two interceptions. His big time throw rate was higher to the right (13.0%), but so was his turnover-worthy play rate (2.9%). Mayfield had a similar weighted PFF grade of 73.3 on those throws.
Not all three of those areas fell off considerably in 2021 due to injury. As a matter of fact, while there was decline when he threw to the center and right, neither was precipitous. In 2021 when targeting receivers to the right, Mayfield completed 64.76% of his passes (68-of-105), which was a bit higher than the year prior.
His 8.4 yards per attempt was also higher. Mayfield’s big-time throw rate was lower at 8.6%, but so was his turnover-worthy play rate (1.9%). His weighted PFF grade fell from 73.3 to 65.4. This was due to a drop-off in his effectiveness throwing deep.
Similarly, Mayfield maintained his completion rate when targeting the middle of the field (72.31%) with an improvement in yards per attempt (8.3) with more touchdowns (10) and interceptions (8).
But the precipitous decline in throws to the left is stark. Baker Mayfield’s completion percentage fell from 70.54% to 51.76%. His yards per attempt fell over three yards to 6.0. His big-time throw rate dropped from 8.9% to 7.1%, while his turnover-worthy play rate ballooned from 1.8% to 5.9%. He also had a 22.2-point drop in weighted PFF grade.
*Weighted PFF Grade is a metric I created by taking the PFF grade assigned to each batch of directional/depth throws and weighting it by the number of attempts within a batch I am trying to define. It is the best I can do to approximate a grade without having knowledge of their proprietary formula. Additionally, the big-time throw and turnover-worthy play rates I calculated by dividing the number of those events by the number of attempts in the referenced situations. These will differ slightly from the rates PFF publishes.
Throwing To The Left With A Torn Left Labrum Is Hard
I think the above statement is patently obvious as it is also very intuitive. When throwing to his left in 2021, Baker Mayfield had to open his throwing motion and stretch his left shoulder. This would have been very painful and affected his throwing motion and power the most. This was most noticeable when he was targeting intermediate to deep routes (routes of 10 yards or more) that year.
In those situations, he was 13-of-42 for 281 yards with one touchdown to three interceptions. His yards per attempt was a paltry 6.7 with an 11.9% turnover-worthy play rate. Compare that to his career outside of that year in those situations and you will see his completion percentage is 16.55% higher, his yards per attempt is 2.6 higher, his weighted PFF grade is 26.9 points higher and his big-time throw rate is 5.1% higher while his turnover worthy play rate is over 8%
lower.
Baker Mayfield's surgically-repaired shoulder could be a key to the 2023 Bucs. Josh Queipo researched the effect of Mayfield's injury in 2021.
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