The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were one of the surprise stories of the 2023 NFL season. Largely expected to be a non-factor, this plucky team made the most of a weak NFC South slate to not only win the division and reach the playoffs, but also topple the Philadelphia Eagles and give the Detroit Lions a run for their money.
The catalyst for this success was the emergence of Baker Mayfield as a bona fide franchise quarterback. While it initially seemed that Mayfield was simply the best of the underwhelming options available to the Bucs following Tom Brady's retirement, the No. 1 overall pick in 2019 played some of his best football ever with the organization and earned his first Pro Bowl nod.
Mayfield finished 2023 having completed a respectable 64.3 percent of his passes for career highs of 4,044 yards and 28 touchdowns. He posted a 9-8 record across his 17 starts—marking only the second-winning season Mayfield has produced—and appears to be a viable long-term solution. He now heads to free agency.
While there have been some rumblings that the Buccaneers could try to find an alternative signal-caller on the trade market, it wouldn't make much sense for the team to take a risk and cough up valuable draft capital following Mayfield's debut campaign in Tampa.
An anonymous NFC personnel evaluator agrees, explaining his reasoning to ESPN's Jeremy Fowler as such:
"I'm not sure it makes sense to go after someone else like Russell Wilson or Justin Fields when I'm not sure that's a substantial upgrade. Mayfield isn't perfect, but you can win games with him. He's streaky, but when he gets hot, he can produce like a top-10 guy."
Mayfield just went off for six touchdowns in his first two playoff starts for the Bucs, so there are clearly plenty of reasons to believe this team can rally behind the 28-year-old. Given his affordability—Spotrac calculated Mayfield's market value to be $27 million annually, a rather reasonable deal for a quality starting quarterback—Tampa should have no qualms about bringing Mayfield back on a long-term deal this offseason.
