Baker Mayfield’s Extension And Who The Bucs Pondered Signing To Succeed Tom Brady
October 19th, 2025
Future and past intel on Baker Mayfield and the Bucs.
Apparently, it wasn’t Baker Mayfield or bust.
NFL insider Diana Russini of The Athletic has interesting intel from the Bucs — future and past.
Both pieces of intel have to do with Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield. The leader in the clubhouse after six games for the NFL Most Valuable Player award is not yet in a contract year. That will be next season.
And it seems the Bucs don’t want Mayfield in a contract year. Per Russini, the Bucs hope to get Mayfield extended. It won’t be cheap, which makes Joe think a handful of guys currently on the Bucs roster won’t be here in 2027. Only so much Team Glazer loot to go around.
However, Russini reports, the Bucs have no interest in hammering out a new contract while the 2025 season is in progress. The Bucs, Russini types, do not want Mayfield distracted.
Only until the 2025 season is over for the Bucs will they begin talking turkey with Mayfield’s people about an extension.
So that’s the future. What about the past?
Well, Russini shares that while Bucs coach Todd Bowles strongly pushed for Jason Licht to sign Mayfield after Tom Brady retired in the winter of 2023, Mayfield wasn’t a slam dunk. And Licht didn’t want to get caught with his pants down in case Mayfield didn’t sign.
So among the veteran quarterbacks the Bucs researched and discussed signing were Jimmy GQ, Sam Darnold and Derek Carr.
The Bucs, Russini notes, believed Mayfield had the higher upside. Boy, they were right on about that.
Not long after, The Sage of Tampa Bay sports, Ira Kaufman, reported early in training camp that the alleged quarterback battle between Kyle Trask and Mayfield was a sham.
Joe also believed (and believes now) that Bowles, who then was on the hot seat and had said Tampa would be his last stop in his NFL coaching career, was guided by common sense and was never going to trust his career to a quarterback who had at the time a grand total of nine passing attempts to his name.
October 19th, 2025 at 8:05 am
I had Mayfield #1 and Darnold #2. I chose well.
October 19th, 2025 at 8:13 am
Fortunately, we never had to look behind Door #2. Licht and staff have done an incredible job with this team! Whenever we seem to get ourselves into a jam, they maneuver us out, and we usually come out smelling like a rose. Hey, love roses.
October 19th, 2025 at 8:32 am
Cleveland here to say you’re welcome! The Browns suck but frankly they deserve it; I’m glad he’s helping the Bucs be the best and my favorite team.
October 19th, 2025 at 8:33 am
It is so amazing that Licht and his team didn’t have us fall off the cliff post Brady. Getting Mayfield was genius, but building/maintaining a strong team around him was just masterful and there is no question that JL is one of the top 3 GMs in the league (I actually don’t think there are 2 better than him!)… especially considering getting better during salary cap hell!
October 19th, 2025 at 8:39 am
Todd made the right choice.
October 19th, 2025 at 8:42 am
Jimmy GQ?? Gaaaa…
October 19th, 2025 at 8:44 am
Have called off the war with the Mayfield haters on this blog. It is just enough to tell them all that they were often wrong about Baker but they were never in doubt.
October 19th, 2025 at 8:55 am
Definitely need to extend him before next season. Prices only go up the longer you wait.
October 19th, 2025 at 8:56 am
It awesome to see the growth of Licht. I remember the Licht haters era.
Now is Todd’s turn. Soon the haters will realize their egos got the best of them.
We all been there.
October 19th, 2025 at 9:00 am
So Bowles not trusting his career to Trask makes sense. But he was their back up for 2023 AND 2024. That makes NO sense.
October 19th, 2025 at 9:04 am
Darnold worked out for 2 teams. The others faded off into obscurity.
October 19th, 2025 at 9:31 am
Personally, I don’t think Baker will be a diva when it comes to his contract. The guy is more about the team than himself. Personally, I could live on $30mil.
October 19th, 2025 at 9:40 am
Darnold got a bad rap at the end of last season. He had a good season and his stats this year are outstanding.
October 19th, 2025 at 9:48 am
So glad we got Baker! Plus, he is a good guy and they love the area. He will do what is right with his contract extension. No worries. Go Bucs! ❤️🏈
October 19th, 2025 at 9:53 am
At that point , both Baker and Darnold were risky but the risk paid off for us ,, Minn was happy last year and Seattle happy this year ,,, both will be commanding bigger $$$$$
I’m hoping Baker gives us a home town, sunshine state break ,, maybe $45 -50 a year which would still be good in 2027
October 19th, 2025 at 9:56 am
If Bowles pushes them up and over the top then of course… he will deserve the accolades. He has the beginnings of a coaching tree as well although I don’t think you could really argue that Canales Coen in their single year tenure will Bowles can truly be a coaching tree.
October 19th, 2025 at 9:58 am
I think Baker goes the Brady route and leaves money out there to resign his guys. He is very unselfish and he cares about his teammates. Baker knows that is the formula for winning.
October 19th, 2025 at 10:03 am
We made the right choice with Baker. I’m watching the London game right now with Rams vs Jaguars. Trevor Lawrence right now is looking like a lost little lamb.
Maybe Coen is longing for Baker…!
Go Bucs!!
October 19th, 2025 at 10:20 am
Poor Trask to the Stupid. Surely he’s now on the message boards of Trask’s new team.
Oh, wait.
October 19th, 2025 at 10:28 am
Proudbucsfan – Agreed.
October 19th, 2025 at 10:39 am
Depending on how this season plays out I think Baker will go for something in between “home team discount” and “most he can get”.
I hope everyone just remembers that with the way the salary cap changes, comparing a contract done one year won’t necessarily align with a contract one or two years later.
By that I mean Dak got all he could. The exact same contract could be a home team discount next year. Cap percentage, not dollars matter.
October 19th, 2025 at 10:57 am
I think Bake will do what ME13 and others have done in the past. Help the team out by restructuring his contract if necessary. Big Mike did that several times. Bake knows Bowles came to his rescue. He and his family love the area and the team, and his play reflects it. We really do have a team of quality character. No thugs or gangbangers allowed. Refreshing to say the least. Go Bucs!!
October 19th, 2025 at 11:03 am
Remember, Baker is a competitor. Sure, he’ll want a good team around him and will be willing to “help.” But don’t imagine Baker won’t know his value or won’t push to “win” on the contract.
It’s reported that when Brady came here he more or less handed JL the contract requirements. Maybe he would have taken more elsewhere — probably could — but he wasn’t about to sell himself short. (And Brady was tall to begin with).
Mayfield won’t sell himself short, either. And if the negotiations turn into a competition Licht will just bring out some of the “little prick.”
October 19th, 2025 at 11:37 am
Had nothing to do with the amount of snaps trask had taken and everything to do with the talent level of trask, it just want high enough.
October 19th, 2025 at 11:49 am
On Fox News Sunday they are heaping lofty platitudes toward Baker this morning.
As for the contract…my prediction is that he might settle for $40 million a year, but with a heap of guarantees. Baker strikes me the same as Brady in a way. He can see that championships require a whole team effort. Not just one overpaid star. You heard it here first.
October 19th, 2025 at 12:07 pm
Interesting that Todd Bowles gets a ton of credit for pushing so heavily to sign Baker Mayfield, AND for picking our last 3 OCs. He’s also the one IMO who pushed for reducing our reliance on BA’s ‘Bombs Away’ go-deep attack in favor of using a more ‘balanced’ attack.
Yet Todd doesn’t seem to get very much credit for how well our offense has performed since Tom Brady left. He’s viewed more as the DC of an average-performing defense than he is as the HC of a very talented TEAM that can now compete with the big dogs.
October 19th, 2025 at 12:13 pm
Contract value will be over $550 million total
October 19th, 2025 at 12:19 pm
orlbucfan … Excellent analysis, and I agree with you almost 100%. Do believe Baker wants very much to stay here, but this next contract has to be ‘respectful’ of how hard he’s worked & the talents/skills that he’s developed. Low ball offers are insulting, but I can’t even envision the Bucs doing something like that.
Baker is very much a ‘field general’ now, and that’s priceless. Still, someone’s gotta put a value on it, and Baker has to see that value as being reasonable, at least as a starting point for negatiations. I doubt that any of us have a feel for what THAT value is, and possibly Baker doesn’t either at this point. If he wins MVP & the Bucs win the Super Bowl, will he want to be the highest paid QB in the league? And if so, what would that do to the rest of the team? Could we afford a hefty pricetag for our OLine to protect him? Or the mega-dollars to various weapons for him to throw to? Or for building a quality defense to protect leads & save games?
Like Joe wrote … ‘Only so much Team Glazer loot to go around’.
October 19th, 2025 at 12:29 pm
THANK YOU CLEVELAND. YOUR LOSS & or mental breakdown. Giving up on a player like Baker Mayfield is for sure a boom for the Bucs .
October 19th, 2025 at 12:30 pm
THANK YOU CLEVELAND. YOUR LOSS & or mental breakdown. Giving up on a player like Baker Mayfield is for sure a boom for the Bucs .
October 19th, 2025 at 12:52 pm
The “Cleveland hate” is rather amusing. I love Baker, but he was passed on by Carolina and Los Angeles. Now LA has a solid SB winning QB in Matt Stafford, but what’s Carolina’s excuse other than their owner is the NFC Souths Jerry Jones?
What is very telling to me is that Trask hasn’t been picked up by anyone. He had a workout with the Colts but they passed on him. I have a feeling he’s going to end up a college level coach. He had a strong arms but didn’t inspire anyone. He was a system QB at Florida, and of course the Gator fanboys went gaga over him because, well, Gators.
Mayfield is the franchise. Find the money and sign him.
October 19th, 2025 at 12:59 pm
i think baker is looking at 200m plus for 4 years at this rate from the bucs, more from another team. more if he wins a SB and or MVP this year.
no self respecting franchise QB is gonna sign for less in this day and age. this home town discount fantasy stuff is just that. fantasy.
its business and his contract is with the team and they have plenty of tv money to share. he’s not taking money from widows and orphans of tampa bay inc. the glazers are gonna raise prices no matter what.
October 19th, 2025 at 2:55 pm
I really hope Baker isn’t an idiot when he signs back with the Bucs. Yeah he deserves top money for what he’s done, but take less money and allow the Bucs to put a team around you every year that can go deep in the playoffs and possibly win it all! Be like Brady and not like Manning. Manning could have won more Super Bowls if he would have took less and let the colts build a D, love off of all those commercials. I hope Baker wants to win over getting a giant contract.
October 19th, 2025 at 5:23 pm
Tucker Says:
“Had nothing to do with the amount of snaps trask had taken and everything to do with the talent level of trask, it just [wasn’t?] high enough.”
So, here’s the real deal:
It was Kyle Trask’s bad luck to be drafted by the Bucs. Had he gone to a team with a decent OL that was willing to give him a season of development, he may have turned out good.
But the Bucs kept him on a shelf. Arians certainly wasn’t going to develop him. Bowles never wanted him.
Now it’s probably too late for him. It’s not the first time a QB was ruined by going to the wrong team.
Bucs are a great organization…but they should have traded or released him years ago. Plenty of career backups out there.
Sure…he may have sucked if given a starting role…or he may not have. We’ll never know.
Bowles did him wrong in my book, and Bowles lied to all of us. He could have manned up and named Mayfield his starter in the beginning.
October 19th, 2025 at 9:38 pm
Give it a rest. These Football contracts sound like MLBaseball. Bake is not an idiot. He has been through the NFL wringer. If he doesn’t make $300M in his next contract, SO WHAT? He knows how lucky he is. If Bucs win tomorrow night, I hope I don’t stroke out. I have low BP, but man, following Cardiac Bucs is not easy.
October 19th, 2025 at 10:24 pm
My guess was Mayfield was here to play for 1-2 years while Trask was always a back up and never stood a chance. I thought Mayfield was a stop gap until they drafted a QB in that big class, I was hoping for Daniels.
I am happy as hell I was wrong and Mayfield worked out, even though Daniel ms would’ve been a really good pick.
As for Trask, I liked when they picked him, but after being inactive most of two years, it was extremely obvious he was only there as a back up because of a rookie contract. He was never going to amount too much.