Baker Mayfield has experienced a complete career resurgence since joining the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Mayfield signed with the Buccaneers on a bargain one-year, $4 million deal in 2023, and has since thrown for 4,000 yards and led the Buccaneers to the playoffs in consecutive seasons. This past season, he completed 71.4% of his passes for a career-high 4,500 yards and 41 touchdowns.
The former Texas Tech walk-on turned No. 1 pick out of Oklahoma had shown flashes of strong quarterback play during his four years with the Browns. Mayfield led the Browns to the playoffs for the first time in 18 years in 2020, but after injuries derailed him for much of the 2021 season, the Browns decided to turn in a different direction at quarterback. Mayfield was traded to the Panthers, and then the Rams, in 2022.
In joining Tampa Bay, Mayfield has not just found success on the field, but acceptance—which he credits for helping him begin living up to his potential.
“This isn’t to sh-- on the other teams and franchises, but when you step in and your GM and your head coach say, ‘Hey, just be you,’ after I’ve been told at every stop and everywhere I go, ‘You need to tone it down a little bit, you need to be a franchise quarterback.’ It’s just not who I am,” Mayfield told Jason and Travis Kelce on the New Heights podcast.
“I wear my emotions on my sleeves. ... I’m gonna talk sh--, I’m going to do whatever, but when it’s time to turn the lights on and go do something, I’m going to do it," Mayfield continued. “So when I stepped into the building they all told me to just be myself. It's been, not to say comfortable, but it's felt like home since the beginning. As a quarterback that's been through a little bit of a journey, you can't ask for anything else."
Since Mayfield was in college he had faced questions regarding his character and personality—in part because of a 2017 arrest for public intoxication and fleeing the police—but also because he did not match the prototypical quarterback leadership mold of a Peyton Manning or Drew Brees.
Mayfield is instead his own person privately and publicly, whether that means some find him too cocky or several of his comments off-putting. Those concerns appear to have finally settled in the two years since he's joined the Buccaneers, where he seems to be right at home.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Baker Mayfield Reveals Unexpected Reason He's Found Success With Buccaneers.
