Tampa Bay Buccaneers star quarterback Baker Mayfield has a lot of reasons to be angry. He started the 2025 NFL regular season as an MVP candidate before the wheels completely fell off the wagon at Raymond James Stadium after a myriad of injuries, coaching disaster classes, and, of course, his own personal performance not being up to the lofty standards he sets for himself.
Mayfield is a player who, throughout his career, has always brought his "A" game after hitting rock bottom and finding additional motivation to play better. Since his days going into college, Mayfield has always had a chip on the shoulder, and the worst thing you can do as a competitor is do even a little thing to set him off.
The Atlanta Falcons certainly set Mayfield off by hiring his former head coach in Cleveland, Kevin Stefanski, and he made his feelings known about the new Falcons head man publicly. There is absolutely no love lost between Mayfield and Stefanski, and let's just say Buccaneers fans will be looking forward to their two meetings with the Falcons in the 2026 season.
Mike McDaniel chose Justin Herbert over Baker Mayfield
But Stefanski wasn't the only former Cleveland coach to give Mayfield bulletin board material. The Buccaneers were in hot pursuit of former Miami Dolphins head coach MIke McDaniel and were among the finalists to hire their obvious No. 1 choice to run the offense next season.
Instead of choosing the Buccaneers and staying in the state of Florida, McDaniel moved himself to the opposite side of the country, selecting the Los Angeles Chargers and their franchise quarterback Justin Herbert over Mayfield and Todd Bowles.
Now, nobody can fault McDaniel for choosing the Chargers over the Buccaneers. While the Chargers have won fewer Super Bowls and have been slightly more dysfunctional over the years, the head coach and quarterback pairing of Jim Harbaugh and Herbert is a lot more appealing than the duo of Todd Bowles and Baker Mayfield.
Of course, most of that has to do with the massive drop off in quality between Harbaugh and Bowles than rather Hebert and Mayfield, but there are plenty of fans who think McDaniel choosing Herbert over Mayfield would be a no brainer anyway.
The Buccaneers are in serious trouble when it comes to picking an offensive coordinator with their best options, especially McDaniel, off the table, and there's no doubt that a personality like Mayfield will feel snubbed deep down by McDaniel. He sees the people claiming Hebert is a better quarterback with better physical tools, and that has to be additional motivation for Mayfield to put together his most complete season as an NFL quarterback in 2026.