Baker Mayfield fires back at Rosen's '9 mistakes made ahead of me' comment
Former UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen wasn’t happy he had to wait a little while to hear his name called on the first day of the NFL draft last month.
Rosen watched as nine players were selected ahead of him, including three other quarterbacks: Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield, who went at No. 1 to the Browns; USC’s Sam Darnold, taken by the Jets at No. 3; and Wyoming’s Josh Allen, whom the Bills traded up to select at No. 7.
The Cardinals made a deal with the Raiders to move up to the No. 10 spot and take Rosen, but the outspoken former Bruin said in several interviews afterward that he was “pissed” he wasn’t selected sooner.
“I thought I should’ve been picked at 1, 2 or 3,” Rosen said via ESPN. “I dropped, and I was pissed. I was really, really angry. I wasn’t really showing it. I was trying to keep calm, cool, composed. But I thought I was going to get picked.”
He went further, saying, “Nine mistakes were made ahead of me.”
That line didn’t sit well with at least one of those so-called mistakes.
Mayfield was asked about it over the weekend during the NFL Players Association’s Rookie Premiere event in Los Angeles, and he said Rosen was drafted right when he should have been.
“To each their own,” Mayfield said in a video interview with ESPN. “The fact that he can say there’s nine mistakes ahead of him, how’s he going to compare himself to a running back and linemen and defensive players that were picked in front of him? There’s no comparison.
“I think everybody ended up where they’re supposed to be. I mean, I get it. I get the competitive nature, but you don’t want to be scripted like that.”
In fairness to Rosen, he walked back his remark a little bit during his introductory press conference in Arizona, saying, “I would actually say that I’m not as angry that there were nine guys ahead of me, just three quarterbacks.”
It’s worth noting that one knock against Rosen was his outspokenness and perceived arrogance; NFL teams generally prefer their quarterbacks to do their talking on the field.
When Rosen, who comes from a wealthy family, was a freshman at UCLA in 2015, photos appeared on social media showing the hot tub he had in his dorm room.
In 2016, he posted (and later deleted) a photo of himself playing golf while wearing a “F— Trump” hat.
Rosen has said he will use his platform to push for political change: “One cause I’ll champion is the environment. It touches everything. I mean, the war in Syria started because of the drought and famine that destabilized the country and led the population to revolt against the government. I know global warming is a partisan issue for some stupid reason, but it touches everything.”
His comments about college football last August also raised eyebrows: “Look, football and school don’t go together. They just don’t. Trying to do both is like trying to do two full-time jobs. There are guys who have no business being in school, but they’re here because this is the path to the NFL. There’s no other way. Then there’s the other side that says raise the SAT eligibility requirements. OK, raise the SAT requirement at Alabama and see what kind of team they have.”
It will be interesting to watch Rosen and Mayfield in the coming years to see whether they will rise to NFL stardom — or prove they were a draft day mistake.
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