If we operate assuming Mayfield was always going to be the first choice

There's something Madden 23 coins hilarious about a team that has the No. number 1 as well as the no. 3 picks in the 2018 Madden NFL 23 Draft, both of whom are quarterbacks. Neither has lived up to expectations. While trading for Mayfield currently lacks foresight ahead of the richest QB draft in recent history however, there's a possibility that could work out for the Panthers although it remains to be seen if Carolina has a realistic plan.

Before we look at how this deal can be a good idea and what it could mean, it should be noted that I'm still not thrilled with this deal, for all of the reasons I mentioned back in May. There's not any benefits in trading Mayfield even if you're part of the Panthers. They're probably the worst teams within the NFC South and Baker will not going to cause Carolina to compete with the Buccaneers for the division championship and it's the NFC can be such a gruesome row, especially within the NFC West in the West, that it's hard to see a wild card being possible. If, in fact, this is the special sauce to put it all together, one of the rewards for the team is having to pay Baker an enormous contract in order to keep him on based on only a small sample size or lose him for nothing.

What it does however it does is make the Panthers more watchable in 2022. as long as we accept the assumption they were never going to go to Corral in his rookie season. The team could be discussing "open competition" in the present, but when the only hurdle is a sub-par Sam Darnold, who has already proven that he's not "the player," any pretense of that there is an actual QB contest is just for posterity's purposes. In 2021. this was a team that was 5-12 and with Mayfield they could be ... I don't know, maybe 8-9?

If we operate assuming Mayfield was always going to be the first choice for the position, that's where things get interesting. The Panthers recruited Ben McAdoo to lead the offense. In the beginning, it was a strange choice that looked like it was bound to face the same problems it did when it was in New York. McAdoo prefers to play an open, fake West Coast shotgun passing base which requires quick decision-making by the quarterback, as well as athletic ability to accumulate yards in the ground once you're flushed out of your pocket. A statuesque, aged Eli Manning was the perfectly the wrong quarterback for this particular system -- much in the same way a statuesque Darnold isn't madden 23 coins cheap  a good fit.