Tampa Bay Buccaneers star quarterback Baker Mayfield is now the big topic of discussion around the entire NFL heading into the preseason, as he will be playing the 2026 regular season on an expiring contract after he and the Bucs could not agree to terms on a contract extension. Worse yet, Mayfield feels spurned by the Bucs organization after they offered him a contract renewal that was not above the $50 million threshold, widely seen as the bare minimum for a franchise quarterback.
All of that is to say that the root of Mayfield's feelings lie in the fact that it is unsaid that Licht and the Bucs don't actually believe in Mayfield as a franchise QB. Because if they did, they would have given him that fat contract long before August hit, and this wouldn't even be a topic of conversation.
Mayfield plays his best football with a chip on his shoulder, and he has an awful lot to prove in the 2026 season. And one of the quiet threads is the Buccaneers want to see what he can do without Liam Coen as the offesnive coordinator.
Liam Coen is thriving without the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Things have fallen apart for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offense without Coen, who won 13 games last season with Trevor Lawrence under center as a first time head coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Despite throwing for fewer yards and touchdowns than Mayfield, Lawrence won more games, threw fewer picks, and had the same ESPN TQBR in his 2025 with Coen as Baker did in 2024 under Coen.
So that's the standard Mayfield is going to be compard to, and while the Jaguars and Buccaneers had other situations outside of the control of the quarterbacks, when figures like $60 million per season are being thrown around as a wish, the quarterback has to prove they can get the job done enough to avoid a historic collapse that results in missing the playoffs.
And the truth for Baker Mayfield is that he was never as impressive in that one season under Liam Coen in 2024 as he was in any other NFL season. Mayfield threw 41 touchdowns that year despite never sniffing 30 in any other season since coming into the league in 2018. He completed a whopping 71 percent of his passes despite never hitting 65 before and threw for 4,500 yards despite only barely topping 4,000 once, which was the previous season in 2023 when he first made the Pro Bowl.
If Mayfield can't do it without Coen next season and if the Jackonsville Jaguars outplay the Buccaneers badly instead, the Bucs are going to wonder if paying the right coaches is a lot more important than paying the wrong quarterback.
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