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Nathan Aronoff

WHAT'S NEXT FOR BAKER MAYFIELD?

Updated: Jan 30

DOES HE DESERVE ANOTHER SHOT?:

Everywhere Baker Mayfield has been, he’s been instantly counted out. Ever since high school, Baker Mayfield has constantly had to prove himself. After bouncing around the league over the past few years, Baker finally found his footing this season in Tampa Bay. Last night, after surpassing all expectations, the Buccaneers’ season came to a heartbreaking end. With Baker heading into the free-agent market, let’s look at his journey and determine if he deserves another shot.


MAYFIELD’S COLLEGE CAREER:

Baker Mayfield was a 3-star recruit coming out of high school. Due to his small frame, Mayfield only earned scholarship offers from Florida Atlantic, New Mexico, North Texas, Rice, Sam Houston State, and Wyoming, but also received preferred walk-on offers from Baylor, Texas Tech, and Washington State. He ultimately decided to accept the preferred walk-on offer from Texas Tech. 

Baker appeared in 8 games in 2013 with the Texas Tech Red Raiders. Mayfield was surprisingly impressive for a walk-on quarterback. Outside his turnover issue, Mayfield put up a good stat line with 1.5 touchdowns and 290 yards per game. Between Texas Tech electing to stick with Mayfield’s competitor, Davis Webb, and recruiting more competition (they brought it a recruit by the name of Patrick Mahomes, you may have heard of him), Mayfield felt that he was being mistreated. Mayfield entered the transfer portal and joined the Oklahoma Sooners.

Baker instantly shined in the Sooner state. After sitting for a year, Mayfield proved all the recruiters and Texas tech wrong. In 2015, his first year as the starter, Mayfield led Oklahoma to an 11W-2L record. Mayfield put up 36 passing touchdowns and 7 rushing touchdowns in only 13 games. Mayfield led the Sooners to their first-ever college football playoff appearance. Oklahoma got blown out 37-17 by Clemson, but Baker had two years left in Oklahoma. 2016 was almost identical for Mayfield and the Sooners. While throwing 40 touchdown passes and nearly 4,000 yards, Mayfield led the Sooners to their second straight 11W-2L season. In 2017, Mayfield took his game to the next level. Mayfield threw for 4,627 yards and 43 touchdowns and added another 311 yards and 6 touchdowns with his legs. At 12W-1L, the Oklahoma Sooners were nominated to play the Georgia Bulldogs in the Rose Bowl in Baker’s second college football playoff appearance. Baker entered the game knowing that this could be his last college football game. He came out firing, leading his offense to 4 touchdowns in the first half. However, Georgia fought all the way back to tie the game at 45 in the final minute of regulation. After the teams exchanged field goals in the first overtime, Georgia eventually pulled away in the second overtime to win 54-48. Even though Mayfield’s college career was ended by Georgia, his legendary performance solidified his case Heisman case. Baker won the Heisman and entered the NFL draft.


MAYFIELD’S CLEVELAND TENURE:

Despite winning the Heisman Trophy, because he was only 6ft1 and 220 pounds and confrontational style, many scouts believed that USC’s Sam Darnold and UCLA’s Josh Rosen were better prospects than Mayfield. Nevertheless, the Cleveland Browns selected Baker Mayfield with the first overall pick of the draft. The supporting cast awaiting Mayfield in Cleveland was laughable, and not many gave Mayfield a chance. 

Cleveland was coming off a winless season and started their 2018 season with another two losses. During a week 3 Thursday night matchup against the New York Jets, Cleveland’s starter, Tyrod Taylor went down and Baker Mayfield was thrown into the fire. Mayfield electrified the crowd by playing his heart out. Baker did it all, he even caught a pass to score a 2-point conversion on a trick play. Mayfield led the Browns to a 21-17 comeback win, their first win in 635 days. Mayfield had finally proven himself worthy of the starting role and took over under center for the remainder of the season. Mayfield led Cleveland to a 7W-8L-1T record, their best season since 2007. 

Baker suffered a bit of a sophomore slump in 2019 before bouncing back in 2020. In 2020, Baker threw for 3,563 yards and 26 touchdowns while limiting the turnovers. The Browns went 11W-5L, enough to make the playoffs for the first time since 2002. On Sunday, Jan 10, 2021, the Cleveland Browns traveled to Pittsburgh to face their division rival Steelers in a game that would become part of Browns history. Before the game, the Browns lost their head coach Kevin Stefanski for the game due to a positive COVID test. Despite the odds being stacked against him, Baker Mayfield went out there and put on a show. By the end of the first quarter, Cleveland already led 28-0. Pittsburgh tried fighting back but to no avail. Baker Mayfield and the Cleveland Browns won 48-37, their first playoff win since 1995. The following week the Browns lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the divisional round. 

In 2021, the Browns expected Baker to take another step forward and were even viewed as contenders. However, that didn’t go as planned. In the second game of the season, Mayfield suffered a shoulder injury on his dominant side. The injury was very severe yet Cleveland decided to downplay it and forced Mayfield to play through it. Naturally, the injury affected his throwing arm and Mayfield wasn’t nearly the same player. Under Mayfield, the 2021 Browns went 6W-8L and missed the playoffs. After missing the playoffs 3 times in 4 years, the Browns decided to move on from Baker Mayfield. 


BAKER’S BOUNCE AROUND:

The next offseason, Cleveland sent a king’s ransom to Houston to get Deshaun Watson and traded Mayfield to the Carolina Panthers. Mayfield played 7 games as a Panther in 2022 and was awful. After going 1W-5L and having more turnovers than touchdowns, Mayfield and the Panthers agreed to separate before the season even ended. Because Mayfield was cut so quickly, he had time to get another shot before the season ended. 

Before their week 15 matchup with the Las Vegas Raiders, the Los Angeles Rams picked up Baker Mayfield. Because Mayfield was new to the team and wasn’t familiar with the offense, John Wolford started the game. However, after Wolford went down, Baker Mayfield was thrown into the fire. Mayfield found himself down 16-3 with 4 minutes remaining and his career on the line. In classic Mayfield fashion, Baker played his heart out and led the Rams on two quick touchdown drives to pull off an improvable 17-16 comeback win. Baker was named the Rams’ starting quarterback for the final four games of the season. Over the next four games, Mayfield wasn’t impressive and the Rams went 1W-3L. Due to his lackluster ending to the season, Baker Mayfield was not brought back for another season in Los Angeles.


BAKER’S 2023 SEASON:

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers got caught in a sticky situation after Tom Brady retired and they lacked the cap space or draft capital to get a legitimate replacement. At this point, Baker Mayfield was viewed as a backup quarterback and his career was just about over. Therefore, the Bucs signed him to a cheap 1-year deal, because someone had to play quarterback. Because of the quarterback strength of the 2024 draft class, the Bucs looked to find their long-term solution there. The plan was for Mayfield to stink the way he had over the past two years so that Tampa Bay could get a high draft pick. 

Nonetheless, Baker and the boys came out hot to start the season. Tampa beat the Vikings 20-17 and the Bears 27-17 before the Eagles handed them their first loss in week 3. After the week 3 loss, the Buccaneers began to spiral, as planned. After 11 games, Mayfield and the Buccaneers were 4W-7L. However, Baker knew that because the NFC South was a weak division, he still had a chance to turn the season around. And so he did. Mayfield got hot and led his team on a 4-game winning streak. Now at 8W-7L, the Bucs had two division games remaining. All they needed to do in order to win the NFC South was win one of the two. They failed to do so against the New Orleans Saints in week 17, but they had another shot the following week. With a playoff birth on the line, the Buccaneers scratched out an ugly 9-0 win against the Carolina Panthers to clinch the division. Against the team that cut Mayfield a year ago, Mayfield sent his team to the playoffs. 

The Philadelphia Eagles were viewed as a top-tier team all year long before they started to fall apart in the final weeks of the regular season. Fortunately, in the wildcard round, they were matched up with the team that wasn’t supposed to be there, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. However, Baker Mayfield proved that his team belonged. Mayfield threw for 337 yards and 3 touchdown passes as he blew out Jalen Hurts and the Eagles 32-9. The big win was a statement: “Baker Mayfield and the Bucs are legit!”

The following week, Mayfield and the Bucs traveled to Detroit to face the Lions. The Lions were one of the very best teams in the league all year long. They showed why by scoring 31 points on Tampa’s top-ranked defense. However, Baker Mayfield had come too far to give up. Mayfield fought his heart out until the very end. He threw for 350 yards and 3 touchdown passes, keeping the Bucs in the game. Yet, despite Mayfield’s great performance, he couldn’t get it done in the end. On Tampa’s final drive, Derrick Barnes made an acrobatic play to pick off Mayfield and win the game for Detroit 31-23. 


WHAT’S NEXT?:

While the season did end in heartbreak, we must give Mayfield credit for turning around this team with purely the power of Will. They were a team that was tanking, and ended up in the divisional round, one touchdown short of the conference championship game. Since Mayfield’s contract was for only one year, he’s now a free agent. It’ll be difficult for Mayfield to find a home because most teams won’t pay a veteran quarterback with a low ceiling. They much rather make a move for a “franchise guy” or draft a quarterback, especially with the strength of this year's draft class.

In my opinion, the best move for both Mayfield and Tampa is to bring back Mayfield on a one or two-year deal. This would allow Baker to prove that 2023 wasn’t a fluke and that he should be given a larger contract. He’s already familiar with the offense and comfortable in Tampa. Meanwhile, the Bucs know what they’re getting. As mentioned, Baker’s already familiar with the offense and comfortable. In addition, this year is the perfect draft to select a quarterback. While Caleb Williams and Drake Maye are the only quarterbacks who will definitely be ready to play right away, Jayden Daniels, Michael Penix, Bo Nix, and JJ McCarthy are all potentially franchise quarterbacks. They do have a relatively late pick, but there have never been more than 5 quarterbacks selected in a first round, so I’m not concerned. The Buccaneers have a lot of valuable pending free agents to take care of, such as Mike Evans, Devin White, and many more. Therefore, it’ll be difficult for them to add a quarterback in the offseason, and drafting their franchise guy is the only option. Baker Mayfield can start for another year or two while they groom their young guy. Ideally, after the contract, Baker goes somewhere else and gets a bag, while whoever they draft steps in and dominates over the next decade. 



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