Head to head · July 2026 draft-day read
Jordan Love or Baker Mayfield?
Jordan Love and Baker Mayfield are a near-tie on 2025 production (15.7 vs 16.0 half-PPR PPG). At matching July 2026 ADP, the pick came down to your roster build, not a market tiebreak.
This week's projections are in the Week 5 start/sit card below. The July 2026 draft-day read that follows is opinion, framed from the cited 2025 data.
This week's start/sit · Half-PPR
Week 5: start Jordan Love or Baker Mayfield?
Jordan Love is the safer start: Baker Mayfield missed Week 4 (thumb) and his Week 5 status isn't known yet.
Jordan Love also projects higher: 15.6 vs 13.9 for Baker Mayfield if he plays.
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QB · GB
Jordan Love
15.6 pts projected · range 4.7–26.7
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QB · TB · Status unknown
Baker Mayfield
13.9 pts projected if he plays · range 3.1–25.1
Missed Week 4 (thumb) — Week 5 status not reported yet (first practice report Wed, Oct 7)
2026 season · the games so far
2026 head-to-head so far
Through Week 4, Jordan Love has out-scored Baker Mayfield by 4.5 PPR points per game, 16.2 to 11.7 (Jordan Love 4 games, Baker Mayfield 3 games).
Through Week 4 · Week 4 in progress — 15 of 16 games final · nflverse stats as of
Baker Mayfield · Week 4 injury report Out — thumb, did not practice
| Jordan Love | Metric | Baker Mayfield |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | Games | 3 |
| 16.2 | PPR points per game | 11.7 |
| 260.3 | Pass yards per game | 205.0 |
| 1.5 | Carries per game | 3.7 |
| 100% | Snap share | 98% |
| 15.1 | PPR points per game, last 3 games | 11.7 |
Purple marks the higher figure. Shares are team-relative, averaged per game; snap share counts only games with a published snap count. "Last 3 games" is each player's own last 3 games played. A dash means no 2026 figure. 2026 regular season via nflverse.
Game by game: Jordan Love · Baker Mayfield
Draft-day record · July 2026
The July 2026 draft-day read
This is the July 2026 pre-draft read, kept as published. Every ADP and market figure on this page comes from the Fantasy Football Calculator snapshot of Jul 15, 2026 and is not updated in-season — 2026 drafts are over and ADP has stopped moving. In-season tools
Metric by metric
The tale of the tape
| Jordan Love | Metric | Baker Mayfield |
|---|---|---|
| 129.1 (QB17) | Draft ADP (July 2026) | 135.1 (QB18) |
| 132 | Overall ADP rank (July 2026) | 140 |
| 15.7 | Fantasy points / game | 16.0 |
| +3.9 | Points over expected (FPOE) | — |
| 50 | Sleeper search rank (July 2026) | 64 |
Purple marks the better figure. A dash means the engine did not cite that metric for that player. 2025 regular season via nflverse · ADP via Fantasy Football Calculator, Jul 15, 2026 snapshot.
xFP (expected fantasy points) is what a typical player would score with the same targets, carries and field position. FPOE (points over expected) is actual points minus xFP, per game.
The consensus read
July 2026 drafts separated them by a hair — Jordan Love at ADP 129.1, Baker Mayfield at ADP 135.1. On 2025 production it is 15.7 vs 16.0 half-PPR points per game.
What had to be true
This call flipped on beliefs that were checkable at the time. Every belief was tied to a checkpoint: the exact data point that would confirm or deny it, with its value at the time of the July 2026 read.
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Checkpoint · Jordan Love
Points over expected (FPOE) per game, season (2025)
+3.9 pts/gm vs expectation (2025) · as of July 2026
Strong move if you believed
Jordan Love's scoring over expected (xFP) is skill, not variance
Poor move if instead
Jordan Love's scoring over expected regresses to the xFP baseline
Sources: Fantasy Football Calculator · Sleeper · nflverse. Every figure here is a value the analysis engine cited from the underlying data. Stats are 2025 regular season via nflverse (CC-BY 4.0); ADP via Fantasy Football Calculator (Jul 15, 2026 snapshot, not updated in-season).
FantasyTools analysis is opinion for entertainment purposes only — not betting, financial, or professional advice.