“Lucky” Baker Mayfield
May 28th, 2026
Interceptions studied.
By most measurements, Baker Mayfield had a horribly unlucky 2025 season.
The former Heisman Trophy winner saw his wide receivers go down like they were ducks in an arcade shooting game. Then, before the second game of the season was finished, Mayfield and the Bucs were down three starters on the offensive line, including both tackles.
The lack of healthy targets and an offensive line in shambles finally caught up with Mayfield. Add in injuries to the Bucs’ quarterback, and the roof caved in.
Yeah, that was really, really rotten luck for Mayfield. But not in the minds of the PFF tribe!
Since it is past Memorial Day Weekend, it’s time for the PFF Tribe to manufacture news and they did not disappoint. Joe’s not knocking the following; it is a bit interesting. But it also screams of “summer reading.”
Mark Chichester of the PFF tribe went through every pass of all NFL starting quarterbacks last season and concluded Mayfield was actually lucky — because he threw several passes that should have been picked.
The nine lucky quarterbacks, per Chichester, in order of good luck are Matt Stafford, Cam Ward, Love, Michael Penix, Dart, Mayfield, Dak Prescott and Calen Williams.
From 2016 to 2025, just 49.09% of turnover-worthy throws resulted in actual interceptions. The rest were dropped by defenders, otherwise broken up or simply fell harmlessly incomplete. An interceptable throw, but a zero in the interception column. That’s good luck.
The reverse is just as common. Across that same 10-year sample, there have been 1,441 interceptions thrown on passes that were not deemed turnover-worthy. That’s one in three of all interceptions thrown in the league over that span. In those moments, the quarterback may have done little or nothing wrong, yet a turnover still lands in the interception column. That’s bad luck.
Per Chichester, 5 of Mayfield’s 11 picks last season were tipped passes.
Joe was curious. The Bucs jumped out to a 6-2 record and then lost seven of the final nine games.
Well, in the first eight games, Mayfield had a grand total of two interceptions, against the Eagles and Lions.
As the Bucs closed out the season with seven of nine losses, Mayfield had nine interceptions, averaging a pick a game. Mayfield had two in the ugly Rams blowout and had two interceptions against the tanking Dolphins, both road games.
May 28th, 2026 at 8:32 am
It should be examined what happened the very next drive after an INT , because it is far more important how you responded the next time out after the adversity.
May 28th, 2026 at 8:37 am
He is also very good, tough, strong and accurate. He is a Franchise QB and needs to get paid Top 10 Money before this season starts or it is all we will be hearing about.
May 28th, 2026 at 8:37 am
Penetration up the middle due to missing both starting guards.
May 28th, 2026 at 8:41 am
For those Baker Bashers, how many losses were on Baker vs Todd’s defense? Yes he did throw some picks but IF the defense could hold a lead, they would NOT have had to play catch up late in games.
May 28th, 2026 at 8:41 am
In the latter part of the season, when Bake was hurt, he wasn’t running as much. Instead of running, he stayed in a collapsing pocket, behind 3rd string guards, and forced too many throws.
Tipped passes are good to note, also receptions stripped from TE’s, also bad receiver routes, balled not caught but tipped by receivers. Lots of reasons for picks.
May 28th, 2026 at 8:54 am
Keep those excuses coming guys. Its never Bakers fault, we get it. Funny how Joe mentions interceptable passes when Mayfield just threw one in OTAs, lol. I know its early and its practice but we see it all the time in during the regular season.
No excuses this season. Its a contract year so being hurt isn’t an option and blaming injuries of his teammates won’t work if he has another bad year. And if he plays good this season I doubt the Bucs will keep him because paying him 200+ mil with a roster full of holes is a losing strategy. No matter how you slice it, this team will get blown up at the end of the season.
May 28th, 2026 at 8:59 am
At least practice picks are 50% good.
Who picked him off?
May 28th, 2026 at 9:12 am
Yes, Todd’s defense is pure slop. But it wasn’t the one throwing interceptions in key moments of the fourth quarter in games down the stretch.
That was Baker Mayfield. It’s because he’s not a clutch QB.
His record during his NFL career proves that out.
I’m happy no extension has been offered to him yet. It’s prove it time.
And the Glazers need to make the right decision and move on after 2026.
May 28th, 2026 at 9:28 am
Bee
Thank you for keeping us grounded.
May 28th, 2026 at 9:39 am
Ummm I’d say all 7 losses were on Baker at end of the season. Next time, score more than 20 pts a game
May 28th, 2026 at 9:48 am
I’d like to give Mayfield a slight pass for last year considering how god awful our defense was. I don’t think any Qb would thrive if you have to play mistake free football to win games. Imagine how much easier it would be for Mayfield if he makes a mistake and the defense bailed him out with a three and out. Or how about giving Mayfield an occasional short field so the offense doesn’t have to drive the length of the field every possession. I’m not saying Mayfield is the best Qb in the league, but he’s far from the worst. If Darnold can win in Seattle with a good defense, there’s no reason Mayfield can’t do the same with a good defense behind him. Just my opinion.
May 28th, 2026 at 9:54 am
“The Bucs jumped out to a 6-2 record and then lost seven of the final nine games.”
+7 in the turnover margin at that point of the season.
12 takeaways to 5 giveaways in our first 8 games.
Our defense allowed a total of 10 points of those 5 giveaways combined.
Our defenses scored on 2 of our 12 takeaways.
Of the remaining 10 takeaways our offense managed to score 26 points out of those 10 extra possessions of a possible 30-80 points. 2 TDs, 4 FGs, 1 INT & 3 punts.
Our first 2 games there were no turnovers on either side and won.
In the other 4 wins we were +9 in the turnover margin 10-1.
In our 2 losses we were -2 in the turnover margin. 2-4.
Team that win the TO battle by at least +1 win 70% of the time, meaning teams that lose the turnover margin lose 70% of the time.
There were 8 games we lost/broke even with the opponent on turnovers committed and we lost every. single. one. of those game.
Again, our first 2 games there were no turnovers on either side. We won both games by a combined 4 points.
Every single game we won after week 2 we won the turnover margin.
The one exception would be the NE game where we finished the game +2 and scored 0 points off either of those extra possessions.
May 28th, 2026 at 10:26 am
StPeteMatt: That’s what she said…
May 28th, 2026 at 10:43 am
Warren. . You know in that Patriots game the score stayed 21 -16 for 14 minutes and 30 seconds until the last 3 minutes in the 4th quarter. My question is where was the offense between those times ?
May 28th, 2026 at 10:44 am
StPeteMatt … ‘Penetration up the middle due to missing both starting guards.’
And yet Baker was only sacked 36 times last season in 17 games, as opposed to 40 times in each of his 2024 & 2023 seasons with us. Plus he ran it fewer times in 2025 (55 rushes) than he did in 2024 (60 runs) or 2023 (62 runs) so it’s not like our OLine was horrific at protecting him.
May 28th, 2026 at 10:52 am
Interceptions have pretty much always been heavily influenced by the tumbling dice. In my opinion there’s 2vthings that heavily tilt the table. Pressure is one, but not necessarily the biggest one. Playing from way behind all the time is the biggest factor to me.
May 28th, 2026 at 10:55 am
Interesting, the same folks who post “stop making excuses for Baker” , he is not a good QB are the same ones who give him no credit when he has a quality game!
May 28th, 2026 at 10:57 am
I confess to being skeptical about passes being labeled “catchable” or inerceptible” by someone eight months later, sitting in a La-z-boy.
Definitely an exercise in imagination. More seriously, those nine guys,
except for Penix, are a pretty good list of QB’s.
May 28th, 2026 at 10:58 am
Warren Brooks Lynch … Nice analysis. Gets tiring when some beat up solely on the defense as the reason for the poor season, or chastise solely Baker for our offense scoring over 120 pts LESS in 2025 than they did in 2024. And of course Todd Bowles is just about everyone’s scapegoat since we failed to make the playoffs last year.
Reality to me is that NFL football is probably the most complex TEAM sport that there is. And because of that complexity, coaches AND players make mistakes; and sometimes they’re glaring mistakes that cost us ballgames. Such is life; there’s always tomorrow.
May 28th, 2026 at 11:03 am
“My question is where was the offense between those times ?”
We scored that TD to make the score 21-16 at the 4:19 mark of the 3rd quarter
We got the ball 4 times afterward and on the 3 drives before the last TD.
We ran 18 plays for a net of 60 yards with drives that ended punt, punt, TOD.
The turnover on downs came on that drive @NE 27 where we could not convert 3rd-4th and 3. We tried to be aggressive, failed and the defense was back on the field to give up that Henderson long run for 2 plays.
Didn’t score again until 38 seconds left in the 4th.
The offense had 3 drives where the scoreboard didn’t move after they pulled within 5 and couldn’t get those 5 points out of those 3 combined drives. 2 FGs would’ve done it. We got into McLaughlins’ range on 2 of those 3 drives, btw.
May 28th, 2026 at 11:29 am
Somewhere between the Baker haters and the excuse makers, lies the truth.
No more excuses this year. He has his OC, OL and plenty of weapons. All QBs deal with injuries, albeit last year was an absurd amount.
No reason to hand Baker a huge contract until we let this thing play out. If he’s balling by mid-season then extend him, if not, then most likely the team isn’t doing well and major changes will be coming. No need to get stuck in a huge contract with so much uncertainty.
May 28th, 2026 at 11:32 am
Again I say to the anti Baker crowd: If you are not extending Baker, What is your plan? Do you have another top 15 QB alternative? This is on Jason Lite. We have no plans of getting and developing a QB from the draft. Teams don’t let starting QBs walk, just as the Bucs cannot let Baker walk. So regardless of stats, picks and whatever else, it’s moot point because they have NO alternative plan.
I think he’s played well enough to get a 2-3 year extension.
May 28th, 2026 at 11:33 am
“Reality to me is that NFL football is probably the most complex TEAM sport that there is”
Not probably, easily is by far and away the most complex team sport on the planet.
Baseball, basketball, or futbol/soccer don’t have the amount of moving parts constantly effecting the game from coaches, players, and officiating like football does.
But, I will say QB like PG in basketball is the same in the sense where by structure of the game it’s your primary ball handler. In both sports, bad ball security usually leads to bad results. Add in 12 of 17 games ended with a score margin 30 points in close to half our games in like we did in ’24. We had 3 30 point games last year, and *I think* we had about 7-8 the year prior. That’s a huge difference imo.
May 28th, 2026 at 11:45 am
@bee writes
Keep those excuses coming guys. Its never Bakers fault, we get it. Funny how Joe mentions interceptable passes when Mayfield just threw one in OTAs, lol. I know its early and its practice but we see it all the time in during the regular season.
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Don’t know whats more moronic
thinking peole have t o give excuses for interceptions when every QB throws them or Citing OTAs every year with no correlation to regular season and being silly enough to come back year after year with the same utter nonsense that QBs just coming back to practice after months off is the same as “regular season”.
May 28th, 2026 at 12:19 pm
Lord help us all,…….now they’re tracking luck stats!
May 28th, 2026 at 12:21 pm
Short QBs have more tipped passes.
May 28th, 2026 at 12:24 pm
Short people have no reason…..
May 28th, 2026 at 12:26 pm
Bad offensive lines cause more tipped passes
May 28th, 2026 at 12:27 pm
They got little baby legs
And they stand so low
You got to pick ’em up
Just to say hello