Why the Los Angeles Rams should extend Baker Mayfield

What a season it has been for the Los Angeles Rams. Just a calendar year removed from a Super Bowl championship, the Rams finished the 2022 NFL season with a 5-12 record, rewarding them with a third-place finish in the top-heavy NFC Western Division. To add on to the underwhelming performance of the LA Rams this past season, their beloved head coach, Sean McVay, scared many fans of the defending champs by igniting concerns about whether or not he would return for the next season.

Luckily for fans of the football club in LA, the Super Bowl-winning head coach is set to return to the club for the 2023 NFL season. Through all the ups and downs of the previous season (mostly down, no use kidding ourselves) there was one player that provided a much-needed spark for the team when they needed it most. This player is free agent quarterback Baker Mayfield, claimed off the Carolina Panthers waiver wire, and he may have just earned himself a big payday.

Whey LA Rams should sign Baker Mayfield to a contract extension

You read the title, let’s talk about why Baker Mayfield deserves a contract extension from the Rams.

Mayfield led a needed late-season spark for the Rams, stepping in when the Rams were 3-9 and playing second and third-stringers. Although there was nothing the veteran QB could do to lift the Rams above third place in the division, he did elevate them out of the fourth-place basement. And despite competing with the injury-riddled Rams roster, he did accomplish a very important task. That is, he gave LA Rams fans some excitement.

He engineered the Mayfield Miracle, a shocking victory by the quarterback who had just deplaned hours before leading the Rams to a fourth-quarter comeback victory over the Las Vegas Raiders. He led the team to a Christmas Day stampede over the Denver Broncos. In short, he put a lot of fun back into the game for disheartened fans.

What led Baker Mayfield to LA?

Just after Mayfield was cut by the Carolina Panthers, the Rams took a flyer by putting on a waiver claim for the suddenly unemployed QB. But unbeknownst to the Rams, Mayfield had suspected that the Rams would do so and booked a flight for himself to Los Angeles just in case. That suspicion proved to be prophetic, as he arrived just in time to compete for the Rams in their showdown with the Las Vegas Raiders.

Sure enough, Mayfield led the Rams to an exciting comeback victory, securing the defending champs a 17-16 win over Las Vegas with two second-half touchdowns. It is not the easiest task in the world to be cut by a team and then take a chance by flying out to a team that you hope will pick up your contract, let alone learning a completely new and foreign offensive playbook in mere hours, allowing you to lead the team to victory, but Baker did just that.

Baker Mayfield is a solid backup to their franchise quarterback, Matthew Stafford. The Rams should make signing Mayfield to a contract extension a priority to provide some insurance for Stafford, as well as a reward for what Mayfield did for the LA Rams to close out the 2022 NFL season.