Quarterback · Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Baker Mayfield

No. 6 · 9th season

Baker Mayfield's worst season came at the worst possible time

There is a version of this that works out fine. There is also a version where the timing simply cannot be worse.

Mayfield came to Tampa Bay and turned a lot of heads — the quarterback who had been counted out, now holding a team together and making people rethink what they thought they knew about him. That kind of run builds goodwill. It also builds expectations for the next contract.

Except his most recent season was his roughest as a Buccaneer. And it landed in his walk year — the final season of his deal, the one that was supposed to be his strongest argument for a big new commitment from the team. Instead, Tampa Bay is weighing what to do, and Mayfield is doing it from a weaker position than anyone around him probably hoped.

A down year costs any player something. In a walk year, it costs more. The leverage that should have been there — the "pay me what I'm worth" moment — is murkier now. Whatever the Buccaneers decide, they are deciding it with more options than they would have had twelve months ago.

Mayfield has been here before, in a sense. The question is whether the next chapter looks like the comeback or the cautionary tale.

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