Baker Mayfield Sends Message to Buccaneers After Draft
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield gave his team a simple message during a huddle at the team’s recent organized team activities at One Buc Place.
“Get a little better each day,” Mayfield told his teammates during a May 3 video by the Buccaneers. “Work on three.”
The video featured Mayfield throwing star wide receiver Chris Godwin, handing off and throwing to running back Rachaad White. Mayfield also throws to wide receiver Deven Thompkins and running back Chase Edmonds in the video.
Mayfield returns on a three-year, $100 million contract that he signed in March after frequent free agency speculation. He turned in a career year for the Buccaneers in 2023 on his one-year, $4 million deal at the time.
Last season, Mayfield completed 64.3% of his passes for 4,044 yards and 28 touchdowns versus 10 interceptions. He had a 94.6 quarterback rating in the process.
Mayfield also led the Buccaneers to a third-straight NFC South title and fourth-straight playoff appearance. He helped the Buccaneers rout the Philadelphia Eagles in the Wild Card round 32-9 with one of the best performances ever by a Tampa Bay quarterback — 337 passing yards and three touchdowns.
Mayfield had the Buccaneers within striking distance of the Detroit Lions, too, in the Divisional round. An interception ended it all in a 31-23 defeat though Mayfield again had a strong game with 349 yards passing for three scores.
Being Close Has Baker Mayfield Motivated
Being just game a away from playing for a Super Bowl berth had Mayfield motivated to come back. He sees a winning organization in Tampa that kept on course after the Tom Brady era between 2020 and 2022 where the team won a Super Bowl in January 2021.
“That’s the ultimate goal. Everybody sets out to do that in the beginning of the new league year and you see what kind of pieces you can put together,” Mayfield told reporters in a March 13 press conference. “But being in an organization that has tasted it before is extremely important because they’ve done it, especially [recently].”
“That makes a big difference that they know the process and the ups and downs. They know they’re going to put us in the best position possible to win because they’ve done it before,” Mayfield added.
“That’s a huge factor in why coming back here meant a lot. You set your goals extremely high. We’re at the highest level of football and competition that we can be in and that’s a big factor in it,” Mayfield concluded.
Buccaneers Ranked Baker Mayfield No. 1 in His Draft Class
The Buccaneers were trying to make things work with former starting quarterback Jameis Winston when Mayfield came out of Oklahoma in 2018. Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht and head coach Todd Bowles, the New York Jets head coach at the time, both held Mayfield in high esteem as a prospect.
“He had a lot of confidence in him,” Licht said of Bowles in a March 13 press conference. “He developed a relationship with him when he was with the Jets in the 2018 draft. We had Baker as our No. 1 quarterback in that draft on our rankings, so we had a lot of confidence in him — but nobody had more confidence than Baker.”
