Baker Mayfield didn’t watch all of Season 3 of Quarterback before it went up on Netflix, but he did get the final say on his own parts.
Mayfield said Netflix and Omaha Productions sent him clips of his own footage to sign off on before release, rather than leaving him to find out what made the cut alongside everyone else.
“I mean, to be honest with you, I didn’t watch the full series,” Mayfield said. “They sent all the clips of us in it just so I could give the final OK.”
That review process is also why he’s now walking back some of what did make it in.
“Apologies to the families with little kiddos because the language on there is actually not very suited for them,” Mayfield said. “I might be a little angry elf on the field every once in a while. So that’s probably the part that I do regret a little bit, but that’s the fire on the field, unfortunately, that comes out on TV.”
Mayfield was one of four quarterbacks profiled this season, joining Joe Flacco, Cam Ward and Jayden Daniels. And among his peers, he seemed to want the show to correct a public perception of him that he admits he’s played a role in creating himself, capturing this stretch of his life and career honestly enough that people watching might come away seeing something closer to how he actually sees himself.
“I wanted to portray that I’m all ball,” Mayfield said. “You can say what you want in the media. You can say I’m cocky, and whatever, but it’s all ball. I love my teammates. I love this game, and I love playing it.”
Getting Mayfield on camera at all took some convincing. He turned the show down multiple times before agreeing to join this season, later explaining that declining repeatedly started to feel like he was making the show about himself, something he didn’t want. A conversation with Peyton Manning, whose Omaha Productions co-produces the series alongside Netflix and NFL Films, helped change his mind, along with talking to other quarterbacks who’d already gone through the process and found it less invasive than he’d assumed.
“I think what Quarterback does is really bring you behind the scenes,” senior coordinating producer Sam Pepper told Awful Announcing. “I think it’s something that makes Peyton really proud to be a part of it. Something that was really important to Peyton early on was to show, better than any other story out there, the work that goes into it. The film studies, the rehab, the family sacrifices. Those are the stories we don’t see. I think those are the stories people are really drawn to.”
That’s more or less the arrangement Mayfield ultimately accepted, with the caveat that he retained final say over which parts actually made it to air.
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