Several former Oklahoma Sooners played this weekend in the opening round of the [autotag]NFL playoffs[/autotag]. Six of them helped their teams move on to the divisional round.
The weekend culminated with a showdown between two former Oklahoma quarterbacks, [autotag]Baker Mayfield[/autotag] and [autotag]Jalen Hurts[/autotag] on Monday Night Football. Which isn’t bad for recruiting.
Mayfield has been someone counted out his whole career. He was then drafted No. 1 to the Cleveland Browns, who had gone 1-31 in their previous 32 games.
Within three years, Mayfield helped lead the Browns to the playoffs and won their first playoff game since 1994. If it wasn’t for a fumbled touchdown out of the endzone, they might have beaten the Kansas City Chiefs and made the AFC Championship game back in 2020.
But how soon teams forget where they came from. Mayfield started strong in the 2021 season before suffering a torn labrum. He tried to play through it but played some of his worst NFL football the rest of the way.
Cleveland decided to move on from the former Sooner, sending him to the Carolina Panthers. Things didn’t go well there and Mayfield was cut and signed by the Los Angeles Rams. The Rams had a ton of injuries, especially in the quarterback room but it gave Mayfield a chance to audition for future teams.
He played well enough to get signed by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. After a quarterback battle, Mayfield was named the starting quarterback, replacing arguably the greatest quarterback of all time, Tom Brady.
The Bucs were a team picked to win five games heading into 2023. A number of analysts projected Mayfield would be benched by midseason. After starting 3-1, the Bucs would lose six of their next seven games. That’s when they righted the ship. Mayfield played some of his best football down the stretch winning five of their final six games giving them the division and a playoff birth.
On Monday night against the defending NFC champs, Mayfield put on a show. He finished 22 of 36 for 337 yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions. That included six drops, the most in a playoff game since 2006.
Watching the performance he put on was not a surprise to Sooner fans. Whenever he’s had his back against the wall, that’s when he shines the most. We saw it for three seasons in Norman.
This performance is just further validation for Baker Mayfield in his NFL journey. After things didn’t work out in Cleveland or Carolina, a number of analysts argued he wasn’t good enough to be an NFL starter. Well, Baker Mayfield rose to the occasion and silenced his critics en route to a masterful performance against Philadelphia.
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