The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' start to the season has been an objective disaster, and after a 33-27 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in their season opener, the Buccaneers returned home to face a Cleveland Browns team they were seemingly guaranteed to beat after their own former offensive coordinator Liam Coen annihilated the Browns with the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 1.
Instead, the Bucs fell short, punching in an 0-2 record. And after a poor first game against Joe Burrow and the Bengals in which he fumbled the ball away three times to totally doom his teammates, Baker Mayfield somehow found a way to play even worse, embarrassing himself against the league's biggest embarrassment, No. 4 Deshaun Watson.
Mayfield's former employers laughed at him all evening long, as Mayfield forced bad passes, missed easy plays, and left points on the table as the Browns prevailed 23-19. And that now makes it two out of two games in which Baker Mayfield has been THE reason why the Buccaneers lost.
Baker Mayfield is dooming the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Now, Mayfield isn't the only problem in Tampa Bay and is far from the only disappointing player on the team, but as the leader of the team and the star quarterback coming off a franchise record contract, so much more is expected of him. And Mayfield is playing like hot garbage right now. There is no excuse for his inability to protect the football, accurately make plays down the field, or read the defense liek an NFL quarterback should.
He is showing the same bad habits that terminated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2025 NFL regular season with a playoff appearance when the postseason should have essentially been a lock in the NFC South.
Jason Licht committed $165 million to Mayfield this offseason, just a couple of weeks away from the season after it seemed like a deal had collapsed and many thought Licht was, rather brilliantly, going to make Mayfield prove himself as a franchise quarterback after his awful 2025 second half of the season performance.
Instead, Licht bowed to Mayfield for some reason, and if Mayfield keeps being the reason why the Buccaneers can't buy a win, then he will only have himself to blame for suddenly deciding to pay Baker when he could have just held on for a couple of weeks, avoided committing crazy money to the quarterback, and then watched Baker sink like this without so much regret or, perhaps, have rewritten the narrative by making Mayfield play with even more motivation.
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