Baker Mayfield is a Top 3 QB in the most depressing category so far this season

Twice there have been murmurs about how the Tampa Bay Buccaneers made a mistake with Baker Mayfield, but both times he's proved everyone wrong. When he signed as a free agency back in 2023, he proceeded to have one of the best years of his career, and he's doing it again after getting a $100 million contract his past offseason.

Baker hasn't gotten the MVP love he probably deserves, even though he still has the numbers to make an argument. This overlooking of his skills might be easy for someone to do from afar and at a glance; Tampa Bay is in the midst of a four game losing streak so surely Mayfield isn't playing well.

Fans around the NFL have been conditioned the believe that if something goes wrong with a Baker-led team, it's probably something he's doing. That hasn't been the case in Tampa Bay, and an updated Betrayal Index proves just how much he's propping the team up with the way he's been performing this season.

Baker Mayfield is one of the most betrayed QBs in the NFL

Mike Sando over at The Athletic put together the Betrayal Index, which measures how well quarterbacks overcome poor play by their own teams’ defenses and special teams. Essentially it's a tool used to determine how much a team losing is the quarterback's fault, which is why Baker Mayfield ranking third through first 10 weeks of the season is notable.

"The Buccaneers are 4-0 when they finish with positive EPA on defense/special teams, but 0-6 otherwise. That is typically the hallmark of a team featuring a win-with quarterback, as opposed to a win-because-of QB. But with four of those defeats falling into the extreme betrayal bucket, Mayfield deserves more credit," Sando wrote.

Almost nobody in Tampa Bay is blaming Baker for what has happened over the last four weeks. The Bucs went 0-4 during hte hardest part of their schedule, but the fact that the games were so close was already a reflection of the effort Baker is putting in on offense.

On the road against the Chiefs, Baker carved up one of the best defenses in the league for a game-tying touchdown drive—in the rain, no less. A week later, he mounted another game-tying drive that featured an iconic stiff arm throw on Nick Bosa. Lest we forget how he had the team in a position to win on the final drive of a game against the Falcons, and this whole stretch of games started back in Week 7 when Mayfield helped the Bucs nearly pull off a miracle comeback against the Ravens on Monday Night Football.

Tampa Bay lost all four of those games, losses that are widely being placed at the feet of the defense and special teams. This "Betrayal Index" only further confirms what everyone is thinking about what is holding the Bucs back this year.

It's unfair to say that Todd Bowles is flat out doing a bad job on defense, because he isn't playing with a full deck. He's trying to run the same aggressive defense he always does but is missing Jamel Dean, SirVocea Dennis, and has the weakest linebacking and pass rushing groups he's ever had in Tampa Bay.

All of that adds up, but it also further highlights how phenomenal of a job Baker has done this year. He's already lived up to the $100 million contract he signed, and continues to prove he's the franchise quarterback Tampa Bay needs.

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