Mayfield takes center stage at OU’s pro day
NORMAN — For the first two hours of Oklahoma’s pro day, Baker Mayfield was nearly invisible.
Wearing a black Nike sweatsuit and white Converse sneakers, Mayfield melted into the background, chatting with former Sooners, coaches and NFL scouts as he watched his teammates run the 40-yard dash, do the bench press and sprint through cone drills.
Standing on his numbers from the NFL Combine a week and a half earlier, the quarterback was merely a spectator and cheerleader for the early morning tests.
But make no mistake: Mayfield was the main attraction. After relative anonymity in the controlled chaos of the Siegfried Strength and Conditioning Center, the reigning Heisman winner traded his Converses for Nike cleats and tied a white headband with a crimson Nike logo around his head. He warmed up with a camera and fuzzy boom mic in tow, making him easy to locate in the cavernous indoor facility.
As he stepped onto the turf and into the spotlight at the Everest Training Center, the buzz that filled the weight room earlier was gone, replaced with quiet concentration. The only audible sounds came from the quick clicks of the cameras, capturing Mayfield’s every move.
NFL A-listers like Denver executives John Elway and Gary Kubiak and Cincinnati head coach Marvin Lewis lined the field along with 58 other head coaches, general managers and scouts representing all 32 teams.
They came for a show, and they got one.
Per Gil Brant, former Dallas Cowboys vice president of player personnel, Mayfield completed 62 of 70 attempts. Of the incompletions, seven were uncatchable and one was a drop.
“I thought it went well,” Mayfield said. “I missed a couple balls. Threw some behind. That will happen. I haven’t thrown to these guys in a while … Guys caught it and ran good routes.
“I think I put myself in a good position today.”
And, in true Mayfield fashion, he put his own twist on workout.
After making a throw to each receiver in the group, Mayfield would jog to the opposite end of the field and run through them again.
It was an unconventional pro day routine, one that Mayfield purposefully chose to do on the advice of former NFL quarterback Jimmy Clausen.
“I did something that probably no other guys would do, which is running back and forth,” he said. “It was a true workout. You have to test yourself in game environment. You have to be able to play when you’re tired in the fourth quarter and you need it. It’s a lot, but it was football. It was fun.”
It was Mayfield’s latest stop on the campaign trail for a top-10 pick in the 2018 NFL Draft.
In the last two months, Mayfield has displayed his on-field skills at the Senior Bowl and the NFL Combine. He’s held meetings with teams at each stop, making contact with 12 to 15 in Indianapolis and a few more in Mobile, Alabama. He had even more scheduled after his pro day workout in Norman.
And at every stop, he continued to build a case to be one of the first quarterbacks taken off the board when the NFL Draft begins on April 26.
“I feel like I put myself in a good spot here to be considered the best quarterback in the draft, no matter the height question or people questioning the character,” he said. “I think these meetings have been great for me … Before the season they had me as a third or fourth-round grade, and now it's improved a little bit.”
Mayfield used those draft projections as part of the fire that fueled him through his final collegiate season. Now, with most mock drafts projecting him to be a top-10 pick, there aren’t many doubters left to feed his underdog mentality.
Even so, Mayfield’s success isn’t changing his self-motivation tactics.
“Before all this, nobody really knew how I motivated myself and now the question is, am I too aggressive?,” he said. “But I'm gonna keep doing what got me here. Yeah, there's some fine-tuning, some polishing up to do, but at the same time, if I don't stay motivated, then what's the point? You have to improve. You have to keep getting better.”
Mayfield will spend the next month and a half leading up to the draft doing just that, beginning with a two-week stint in Norman. He’ll host two camps and handle other business — he signed a sponsorship deal with Nike on Wednesday afternoon — before returning to California for a week.
Then, he’ll pack his bags and take his show back on the road for more visits and private workouts.
“You only do it once and you’ve got to enjoy it,” Mayfield said. “Not everyone gets to go through this, so have fun.”