Quarterback · Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Baker Mayfield

No. 6 · 9th season

Baker Mayfield says a new deal isn't close — and the clock is already running

Contract talks have a way of quietly simmering until someone turns up the heat. Baker Mayfield just did.

Mayfield has been the starting quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers since arriving in 2023, a tenure that ended with him leading the team to the playoffs and earning a reputation as one of the more surprising turnaround stories at the position in recent memory. He came in with something to prove. That part, he handled.

Now comes the business end. Mayfield told reporters this week that a new contract is "not anywhere close" — and he made his position plain: once training camp opens, negotiations stop. Whatever gets settled gets settled before then, or it waits until after the season.

That kind of deadline has real teeth. Playing out a season without a new deal, at the quarterback position, is a gamble — an injury changes everything, and a down year changes the math. For the Buccaneers, it is a different kind of pressure: let their quarterback walk into camp without resolution, and every week of the season carries a little extra weight.

The offseason just got shorter for both sides.

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