Can Baker Mayfield succeed leading Bucs’ post-Tom Brady offense?

Greg Auman

NFC South Reporter

Under the circumstances, Baker Mayfield is a splash signing for the Bucs.

The former No. 1 overall pick is coming to Tampa Bay on a modest one-year, $4 million contract that could be worth as much as $8.5 million with incentives.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a larger middle ground than what he arrives to with the Bucs — nearly anyone would be seen as a dramatic dropoff to Tom Brady, who retired after 23 years, including winning his seventh and final Super Bowl with the Bucs two years ago. And it isn’t hard to present someone as a more proven option than Kyle Trask, the 2021 second-round pick who will be competing for the Bucs’ starting job but has only nine pass attempts from a single brief appearance in his two NFL seasons.

In between, you’ll find Mayfield, somehow on his fourth NFL team in nine months. Last July, he was traded by the Browns to the Panthers, where he went 1-5 as a starter before being cut, signing for a wild five games with the Rams. He’s still only 27, so this is a chance for him to reestablish himself as an NFL starter, whether his future is in Tampa or with yet another team.

Which Mayfield will the Bucs get this fall? The hope is that new offensive coordinator Dave Canales can bring him back to 2020, when he threw for 26 touchdowns against eight interceptions, leading the Browns back to the playoffs, both their first appearance in 18 years and their first postseason win in 26 years. Canales brought the very best out of another high-drafted and underwhelming quarterback in Geno Smith last season with the Seahawks, so you can see why the team would see Mayfield as another potential comeback story.

What if it’s the Mayfield of the past two seasons? In two years with three teams, he has 27 touchdowns against 21 interceptions. Since he came into the league, Mayfield has thrown 64 interceptions, more than any other quarterback. In fairness, second on that interceptions list is Bills quarterback Josh Allen, who has 60 but is seen as one of the league’s best young quarterbacks. Much of Mayfield’s success and failure in Tampa will hinge on how well Canales can get him to limit his turnovers.

Baker Mayfield inks one-year deal with Bucs

Baker Mayfield is expected to compete with Kyle Trask for Tampa Bay’s starting quarterback position. Colin Cowherd reacts to the news.

Mayfield’s best work came in Cleveland, when the Browns were one of the few teams in the league to pay two receivers elite money, giving him a pair of playmaking targets in Odell Beckham Jr. and Jarvis Landry. They both went over 1,000 receiving yards in 2019, and the Bucs have a similar situation with Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, who have gone over 1,000 yards together three times in the past four years.

The Bucs went into this week with serious spending limitations, being as much as $57 million over the salary cap, with a slew of talented free agents from the roster brought together trying to chase another ring with Brady. They’ve done better than most expected, able to bring back their top free agent in corner Jamel Dean as well as outside linebacker Anthony Nelson.

Quarterback was always going to be limited by that budget. To add a $50 million quarterback like Lamar Jackson was just too much of a massive commitment, whatever cap gymnastics could have made it feasible. Even Derek Carr — signed to a three-year, $100 million deal with the Saints — was probably too expensive. Mayfield is four years younger, and while his turnovers are certainly higher, if you look at touchdown passes per game since 2018, Carr is at 1.43 and Mayfield is at 1.42.

Tampa Bay, in fairness, has one of the least imposing quarterback rooms in the NFL, a rare team with neither a high-dollar veteran nor a high-drafted younger option. You’d put them right there with Atlanta’s new pairing of Taylor Heinicke and Desmond Ridder, with Washington’s Sam Howell and whoever else the Commanders find. There’s not much else close, with Carolina and Houston expected to take quarterbacks with the top two picks in next month’s draft.

Mayfield has been one of the more colorful and polarizing quarterbacks to enter the league in recent years, not unlike another former No. 1 pick, Jameis Winston, in having a high volume of highlight plays and frustrating interceptions. One is fully in Tampa Bay’s past, while the other now has a chance to be a big part of its present, at least.

Todd Bowles has seen what Mayfield can do firsthand. Mayfield’s NFL debut came in 2018 against Bowles’ New York Jets, who led 14-3 over Cleveland when the Browns pulled Tyrod Taylor and turned to their top-pick rookie. Mayfield didn’t throw a touchdown that day, but he went 17-for-23, leading the Browns back and completing key passes on a 65-yard touchdown drive with two minutes left for a 21-17 victory.

His time in Carolina last year was disappointing, going 1-5 as a starter with coach Matt Rhule getting fired, but his debut with the Rams was a reminder of what an electric player he can be. Just days after being traded, Mayfield and the Rams were down 16-3 with five minutes to play, and he led them on touchdown drives of 75 and 98 yards to pull off a 17-16 win, the winning touchdown pass coming with 10 seconds left.

It was the same thing the Bucs and Brady had done against the Rams five weeks earlier, rallying the Bucs with a touchdown pass with nine seconds left for an unlikely comeback win.

Tampa Bay’s offense in 2022 was a shell of what it was the previous two years, going from 30 points a game to a confounding 18 last year, the sum of the talented parts nowhere near as good as an offensive unit. Whether it’s Mayfield or Trask, this year’s Bucs will have a much different perspective, with much lower expectations and the chance to exceed them.

The NFC South didn’t produce a single team with a winning record in 2022, so the Bucs had the dubious honor of being the best of one of the worst divisions in recent memory. It’s been a busy spring for all four teams, with Carolina hiring Frank Reich and trading up to get the No. 1 overall pick, New Orleans bringing in Carr and Atlanta going on as big a spending spree as any NFL team this week in free agency.

The Bucs will have a more low-key offseason, struggling just to keep their best players around. Mayfield will be one of the biggest additions to their roster. Whether he can turn his career around, in a wide-open NFC South, may go a long way to seeing how the Bucs can turn their season around in 2023.

Greg Auman is FOX Sports’ NFC South reporter, covering the Buccaneers, Falcons, Panthers and Saints. He is in his 10th season covering the Bucs and the NFL full-time, having spent time at the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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