When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers signed Baker Mayfield to a one-year deal back in 2023, the move was met with a barrage of Twitter comedians dropping the same lame joke about the move. Fast-forward three years, and it's Baker and the Bucs getting the last laugh.
In his first two seasons with Tampa Bay, Baker has led the team to a pair of NFC South titles and back-to-back playoff appearances, helped two first-year offensive coordinators get head coaching jobs, and has matured into one of the most reliable locker room leaders in the NFL.
It's a far cry from where he was earlier in his career. The Cleveland Browns gave up on him, and things didn't go much better when he spent less than a season with the Carolina Panthers. A brief stint with the Los Angeles Rams showed the flash of potential he had when he was coming out of Oklahoma, and now that he's found a home in Tampa Bay he's also found his groove.
All of this has led him from looking like a potential No. 1 overall pick bust to looking like the frontrunner for NFL MVP this season.
Baker Mayfield proved MVP is his award to lose after insane Week 5 win
It's pretty easy to make a strong case for Baker as MVP, despite the fact that he still has some detractors. One of those forces working against him is the oddsmakers, who inexplicably have both Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert ranked ahead of him with better odds.
As far as the numbers go, Baker's stats speak for themselves. Among key quarterback metrics, Baker has the edge on both Mahomes and Herbert in every category except completion percentage. Herbert is sixth-tenths of a percentage point better than Baker, but contextually it's hard to not give Mayfield the edge.
The only real competition he has right now is Josh Allen, the reigning MVP whom Baker is neck-and-neck with in every key metric.
Baker Mayfield | Josh Allen | Patrick Mahomes | Justin Herbert | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Record | 4-1 | 4-1 | 2-3 | 3-2 |
Cmp% | 65.1% | 70.4% | 61.3% | 65.7% |
Pass Yds | 1,283 yds | 1,127 yds | 1,257 yds | 1,229 yds |
Pass Y/A | 7.5 | 8.0 | 6.6 | 6.9 |
Pass Y/G | 256.6 YPG | 243.4 YPG | 251.4 YPG | 245.8 YPG |
Pass TD | 10 TDs | 9 TDs | 8 TDs | 8 TDs |
INT | 1 INT | 2 INTs | 2 INTs | 4 INTs |
QBR | 105.7 | 117.9 | 75.1 | 88.5 |
Just look at his game against the Seahawks in Week 5. Baker finished the game with an 87.9 percent completion percentage which is the highest by any quarterback so far this season. That's impressive in its own right, but he used it to power the Bucs to a 38-35 comeback win to improve to 4-1.
That's been a pattern all season long, as Baker's grit has willed the Bucs to wins they otherwise wouldn't have gotten. It's the franchise's 50th anniversary, and fans are very familiar with the numerous times the team has fallen short in similar situations, but Baker has proven to be the secret sauce.
When the Bucs got the ball back with under two minutes left needing a score in a shootout on Sunday, there wasn't a single doubt that Baker could come through. That's not a feeling Bucs fans are familiar with, but it's a type of calming confidence he gives not only fans but the players around him.
Tampa Bay has held a lead for just 35.1 percent of its snaps in the fourth quarter so far this season, yet they're 4-1 and arguably a blocked punt away from being undefeated. Per Elias, the Bucs have won four games where their game-winning score came within the final minute of the fourth quarter, which is the most by any team in its first five games since the 1970 merger.
None of that happens without Baker, full stop.
If the MVP award is truly meant to honor the most valuable player in the league, it's nearly impossible to argue that Baker hasn't been that for the Bucs.
That's where the narrative comes into play, and it's a powerful factor in making his MVP case. Last year the Bucs were 3-5 in one-score games but have flipped the script and evolved thanks to the leadership Baker has provided. That extends to this entire era for the team, one that everyone wrote off as a post-Tom Brady slump but has become the most successful stretch in franchise history that didn't involve a Super Bowl.
Combine that with how much Baker has re-written his legacy since being jettisoned by the Browns and all of a sudden his MVP portfolio is pretty attractive. A major part of his success story in Tampa Bay has been how he's matured as a leader, essentially expunging his record of the blemishes that haunted him earlier in his career.
All of the questions about him that led to the jokes from trolls when he signed in Tampa have been emphatically answered. Baker has changed the course of a franchise habitually on the wrong side of situations he's pulled them away from, and this season is already looking like his masterpiece.
Baker has the numbers, he has the narrative, and he should have the pole position in this year's MVP race. He gives the Bucs an identity nobody thought they'd have, has them winning in ways that defy logic and historical data, and is doing it against all odds.
If that's not an MVP, then maybe we need to go back to the drawing board.
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