Baker Mayfield signed with the Buccaneers on March 15, 2023, on a one-year, $4 million "prove it" deal after being cut by the Panthers and finishing that year in Los Angeles with the Rams. Three seasons later he is the highest-paid, most statistically productive quarterback the franchise has had since Tom Brady, and he is heading into the final year of his contract without a new one signed.
Three seasons in Tampa, by the numbers
Mayfield has started all 17 games in each of his three seasons with the Buccaneers, a streak that says as much about his durability as anything else on the stat sheet.
SeasonComp/AttComp %YardsTDINTRating
2023
364/566
64.3%
4,044
28
10
94.6
2024
407/570
71.4%
4,500
41
16
106.8
2025
343/543
63.2%
3,693
26
11
90.6
His first year in Tampa was already a career year at the time: a 4,044-yard, 28-touchdown season that got the Buccaneers back into the playoffs. 2024 was better still, a 41-touchdown, 106.8-rating season that stands as the best of his career by most measures. Mayfield earned Pro Bowl selections for both the 2023 and 2024 seasons, and was named the 2023 Pro Bowl's Offensive MVP.
Add the three years together and Mayfield has thrown for 12,237 yards, 95 touchdowns and 37 interceptions on 1,114 completions in Tampa, numbers built almost entirely in an era when the Buccaneers have not kept the same playcaller two years running.
2025 was a step back. Completion percentage dropped eight points from its 2024 peak, touchdowns fell from 41 to 26, and the passer rating settled at 90.6, closer to his 2023 number than his 2024 one. Mayfield was not selected to the Pro Bowl for the 2025 season; only tackle Tristan Wirfs and safety Antoine Winfield Jr. represented the Buccaneers there. None of that erased what 2023 and 2024 built, but it turned 2026 into a "which version shows up" question rather than a formality.
The contract question
Mayfield's current deal dates to March 10, 2024: a three-year extension worth up to $100 million, with $50 million guaranteed. That contract runs through the 2026 season, which makes this his walk year. Reports out of training camp indicate Mayfield and the Buccaneers reached an impasse in extension talks and missed his self-imposed deadline of the start of camp. He did not hold out over it and was a full participant from day one, but the situation is unresolved: barring a new deal during the season, Mayfield plays 2026 for a team that has not yet committed to him beyond it. For a locker room and a fan base that has watched him rebuild a career here, that is the single biggest storyline hanging over the season before a snap is played.
The backup situation: a name nobody expected
Behind Mayfield, the Buccaneers enter 2026 with Jalon Daniels as QB2, an undrafted rookie out of Kansas who made the roster over more experienced options at final cuts in late August. Both the team's own depth chart and ESPN's roster list him as the only other quarterback on the 53-man roster, with veteran Easton Stick kept on the practice squad rather than the active roster. [CHECK: exact date and terms of Jalon Daniels' signing as an undrafted free agent, and which other quarterbacks he beat out in camp]
Handing the No. 2 job to an undrafted rookie is a bet that Mayfield's durability, three straight 17-start seasons, makes the position behind him close to theoretical. It also means that if anything happens to Mayfield in 2026, the Buccaneers' season rests on a player with no NFL regular-season snaps.
A new voice calling plays
Mayfield will also be working with a new offensive coordinator for the fourth time in four Tampa seasons: the team hired Zac Robinson, announced January 22, 2026, after firing Josh Grizzard, who had held the job for one season, at the end of 2025. Team reporting describes Robinson as the franchise's fifth offensive coordinator in as many years, a level of turnover most starting quarterbacks never have to deal with.
Robinson is not new to the coordinator chair. He spent 2019 through 2023 in the Rams' quarterbacks room in various roles, from assistant quarterbacks coach to pass game coordinator, and was on the staff when the Rams won Super Bowl LVI over the Bengals following the 2021 season. From there he became the Atlanta Falcons' offensive coordinator for the 2024 and 2025 seasons under head coach Raheem Morris, before Tampa hired him to run Todd Bowles' offense in 2026. Quarterbacks coach Chandler Whitmer remains in place, giving Mayfield at least one constant in the room, but the year-over-year change at coordinator is now a pattern rather than an exception in Tampa.
What to watch in 2026
Three things will define whether this season reads as a bounce-back or a further step down. First, how quickly Mayfield and Robinson's offense find a rhythm together, given that Mayfield's best statistical season came under a different coordinator entirely. Second, whether the drop from 2024 to 2025 was a one-year dip or the start of a decline, something only a full season of tape will answer. Third, and hanging over everything else, whether the Buccaneers and Mayfield find a way to a contract extension before he plays out the final guaranteed year of his deal and potentially opens the 2027 offseason as a free agent.
None of that changes what already happened: a player cut loose by one team and passed over by another has thrown for more than 12,000 yards and 95 touchdowns in three seasons in Tampa. What happens next decides whether that run gets a fourth chapter here.
