Tampa Bay Buccaneers starting quarterback Baker Mayfield can be a mercurial player, but one thing is for certain about the former Oklahoma first round pick. When he is anointed a team's franchise quarterback, his fans love him to death, and that could not be more true for his status right now in Tampa Bay even after a disastrous 2025 NFL regular season collapse.
Though the Bucs missed out on the playoffs in the league's easiest division, few are blaming Mayfield around One Buc Place. The same cannot be said for the mainstream media, who have lowered Baker on most NFL QB Power Rankings with questions regarding his ceiling and ability to win it all, but the Bucs faithful are not listening to the outside opinions on Mayfield.
One such opinion backed up by statistics is that Mayfield does not take good care of the ball and is lucky not to be exposed more for turnovers. Pro Football Focus's Mark Chichester recently delved into the analytics and stated that the data shows Mayfield was lucky not to have thrown more interceptions last season. He apparently had a significant number of dropped picks and a low amount of interception worthy passes that were actually intercepted by the defense.
Baker Mayfield has that Favre in him
The thing is, Tampa Bay Buccaneers fans are looking at that data and while they cannot argue with objective numbers, the reality for them is that they don't mind Mayfield throwing the picks. Mayfield is a gunslinger in mentality and playing style. He has that playground Brett Favre to him, and if you take that away from him, you take away what makes him so special.
For a lot of Buccaneers fans, the turnovers, which were already high (and higher) in the 2024 NFL season when the Bucs did make the playoffs, are a product of a playing style that is conducive to huge plays. And when Tampa tries to tone Baker down, the entire offense suffers.
A massive part of the internal frustration that especially the pass-catchers have harped on this offseason while praising new offensive coordinator Zac Robinson is how Josh Grizzard took the ball out of Mayfield's hands last season. He forced Mayfield into playing unnecessarily safer, running the ball too often, and taking the ball out of the hands of his best players, particularly vertically.
Buccaneers fans do not mind the negative plays, because for each negative play, Baker provides five positive ones, including a couple of real big pops to put up points. And even though Mayfield led the league in interceptions with 16 two years ago and had double digits again last season, those INT totals are not so gaudy. The league has become too safe these days, and it's actually the quarterbacks willing to make the plays who do the best - just look at Super Bowl winner Sam Darnold.
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