Panthers Life Won’t Be Easy For Baker Mayfield Due to Fierce Competition at Quarterback

Posted on by Jack Marks

The Cleveland Browns and Carolina Panthers ultimately reached an agreement on a trade for quarterback Baker Mayfield on Wednesday. And like other transactions, it will have an impact on the parties involved in the deal. Additionally, Mayfield will cost Carolina around $5 million in cap space this season since Cleveland is anxious to get rid of him and is ready to eat $10.5 million of his contract to do so.

That’s smart business for a squad that was in dire need of a quarterback option other than Sam Darnold. The prevailing consensus was that Mayfield, the 2018 No. 1 overall pick, would start at center for the Panthers’ Week One matchup with his old squad.

Baker Mayfield

But Carolina will force Mayfield to earn the right to be the No. 1 quarterback. With Sam Darnold, P.J. Walker, and Matt Corral already on the roster, Panthers general manager Scott Fitterer stated in a press conference on Tuesday that there is an “open competition” at quarterback.

ALSO READ: “Done With Football”: Rob Gronkowski, Who Once Retired and Unretired Before, Insists on Not Coming Back to Football

Panthers GM says there’s a competition for the QB position despite Baker Mayfield signature

“The reason why we added Baker was to make the group better as a whole,” Fitterer said via ProFootballTalk.

“Our whole philosophy is to add competition not just in the quarterback room but every position. So if we see an opportunity to get better, where we can add a player that makes sense for us as a team, makes sense for us financially, makes sense for us just from an addition standpoint, we’re going to do that. And with Baker being out there, having the conversations, it made sense for us.”

However, this isn’t Carolina’s first attempt at a quarterback reclamation effort in recent times. Just this summer, the Panthers acquired Darnold, who was selected third overall in the 2018 draft, ahead of Mayfield, who was chosen first. They then swiftly exercised his fifth-year option, securing an $18.6 million salary charge for 2022.

Teddy Bridgewater was chosen by Rhule to be his first starting quarterback in the offseason before that, and Carolina granted him a three-year, $63 million contract before trading him to Denver a year later. Additionally, the Panthers paid Cam Newton $6 million in November of last year to replace an injured Darnold.

More NFL news: 

Follow our NFL page for more key NFL updates and news