MOBILE, Ala. — At the Senior Bowl last year, Browns general manager John Dorsey already knew that Baker Mayfield was his man at No. 1. A year later, Mayfield holds the record for most touchdown passes as a rookie with 27 and is a leading contender for NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year.

Dorsey believes the best is yet to come.

“He’s mature beyond his age group and I’m just happy he’s a member of the Cleveland Browns organization and I can’t wait to see what he does next year,’’ Dorsey said Tuesday between practices at the Senior Bowl.

Dorsey met with Mayfield for the first time here last year and it confirmed for him that he was the pick.

“I knew in my heart of hearts what he was back in the month of October, November, but I think you keep that to yourself and you listen to everybody,'' Dorsey said. "You don’t want to influence the room and you want the room to have Baker earn their respect and I think he did that for everybody in the organization.’’

Lightning struck twice for Dorsey with the selection of Patrick Mahomes with the No. 10 pick by the Chiefs in 2017, and then Mayfield at No. 1 in 2018. Mahomes, of course, just lost a heartbreaker to the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game, but finished first in the NFL with 50 touchdown passes and second in the league with 113.8 rating. Can Mayfield be Mahomes?

“First off, I’m not going to talk about another team’s player," he said. “I will talk about Baker Mayfield. I like everything about his makeup. I like how his teammates really rally behind him, I like his eyes downfield, I like his accuracy with his deep throws, I like how he shows that fighter’s spirit when it comes time to come back, he’s fighting through to come back and I applaud those things. He’s dynamite (in the red zone), he’s very good."

With the Rams’ Jared Goff making it to the Super Bowl in his third season, Carson Wentz helping the Eagles get there in his second year and Mahomes almost making it in his first as a starter, is that where the bar is set for Mayfield, who was one of the hottest quarterbacks in the NFL in the final eight games of the season?

“All along, we’ve said Baker’s a rookie, and I think there are exponential really good learning curves," he said. “I’ve always said 20-25 percent improvement, now it’s up to that player with the staff that’s been assembled here now is to grasp as much as he can and move forward and you would expect to see really good strides from him.’’

Dorsey believes Mayfield will make significant progress on his own this offseason.

“You want to see him have a greater understanding of defenses, taking this offensive playbook and adding to where he left off and develop into that mature leader that I expect him to be and move forward in a positive direction.’’

This season, Mayfield will have a new offensive coordinator in former Bucs OC Todd Monken, and a new quarterbacks coach in Ryan Lindley, who was promoted from running backs coach and hand-picked by Freddie Kitchens. Monken, who ran the No 1 passing offense in the NFL last year, brings plenty of experience in the Air Raid offense that Mayfield excelled in at Oklahoma. Dorsey believes he’ll be great for Mayfield and a tremendous compliment to Kitchens.

“To me, you get another idea guy in there in the offensive staff room and when you have people like Freddie and Todd and some of the other coaches in there just game planning and building off of each other, it does nothing but create a really good environment for the whole offensive side of the football,’’ he said.

He also believes that Kitchens and Mayfield will continue to have the synergy that was evident the final eight games.

“It’s always good when the offensive head coach and the quarterback think like-minded,’’ said Dorsey. “That’s a good thing.”

He also thinks Lindley will build on the work that former quarterbacks coach Ken Zampese did with Mayfield, who threw 19 TDs and eight interceptions the second half of the season en route to a 106.2 rating. He was also sacked only five times in that span.

“Ryan, in his own right, is a really good up-and-coming coach,’’ said Dorsey. “He has a relationship with Baker as well.”

Because of Kitchens, Monken and Lindley, Dorsey doesn’t think Mayfield needs much tweaking or tutoring in his time off before the offseason program.

“I think he’s got three qualified people here and that’s why they’re here,’’ he said. “They teach young people what to do in the game of football.

With Mayfield winning six games in 2018 and coming off the bench to win a seventh, are playoffs the expectation next year?

“We’ve said all along we want to be competitive year in and year out in the AFC North and we will be competitive in the AFC North,’’ he said.