The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are fully ride or die with Baker Mayfield, and the only reason why he has not signed a new contract with the organization before the start of the 2026 NFL regular season is all dollars and cents. Because every other indication from the team has been that Mayfield is the guy, and there has never really been a Plan B in sight.
But there has been movement beind Baker on the Bucs depth chart. The Buccaneers did not plan on having an open competition for the QB2 gig after acquiring Jake Browning from the Cincinnati Bengals to replace a now retired Teddy Bridgewater, but undrafted free agent quarterback Jalon Daniels was so impressive in the preseason that the Bucs organization had no choice but to give him the QB2 gig on merit alone.
Browning then declined the practice squad offer, so it is Daniels or bust if anything were to happen to Mayfield. And as we saw last season against the Los Angeles Rams, there are some injuries that are too much that even the Bake cannot fight through them.
The Buccaneers could not win with Teddy Bridgewater last season
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were torn to shreds by the Rams and Matthew Stafford for a variety of reasons, but Mayfield's injury was definitely one of them. Tampa put in Teddy Bridgewater into the game, and he was so bad that he looked totally finished at the NFL level, which he pretty much proved himself by retiring at the end of the season. And the Bucs offense sputtered without a live NFL arm under center, and Bridgewater definitely could not run the Bucs offense in lieu of Mayfield.
Jalon Daniels is obviously no one-to-one replacement for Baker Mayfield, and even in an impressive offseason, the Kansas Jayhawk did show towards the end of the preseason that he has a long way to go before he can start an NFL game.
But if the Buccaneers need to call upon a quarterback to replae Mayfield in a pinch, Daniels will do, and he will clearly do much better than either Teddy Bridgewater did last season or than Jake Browning would have done if he were the QBs.
Ideally, you would have a backup quarterback who can at least do some of the same things the starter can do, and for the first time, the Bucs have a backup quarterback who can run, play off the cuff, and challenge defenses down the field in Daniels. And he has enough of an "It" factor that he can potentially capture lightening in a bottle and win a game or two for the Bucs against the odds if he has to.
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