{"id":704434,"date":"2026-01-25T17:52:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T17:52:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/704434\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T17:52:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T17:52:16","slug":"baker-mayfield-is-rock-solid-for-2026-joebucsfan-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/704434\/","title":{"rendered":"Baker Mayfield Is Rock Solid For 2026 – JoeBucsFan.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

When Baker Mayfield was an MVP frontrunner.<\/p>\n

So how comfortable are you with the Bucs\u2019 quarterback room right now? Sadly, \u201cthis Joe\u201d confesses to developing doubts.<\/p>\n

Over at BSPN, Seth Walder, a man who never met a number he didn\u2019t like, wanted to hear from the four-letter\u2019s NFC South beat reporters about how confident they are<\/a>\u00a0with their team\u2019s quarterback room, meaning starting quarterback and backup(s).<\/p>\n

Jenna Laine of ESPN isn\u2019t overly confident. On a scale of 1-10, Laine listed her confidence in the Bucs\u2019 quarterbacks at a 7<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Laine: 7. A year ago, this rating would have been even higher, with Mayfield having finished with 41 touchdowns in 2024, the second-most in the league, and having led the Bucs to a 10-win season. And even in the first half of the season in 2025, Mayfield looked like an MVP candidate, in the way he led the offense in a near-record number of last-second comebacks. But he was hampered by left and right shoulder injuries and a knee injury.<\/p>\n

Still, Mayfield saw his accuracy drop, and he had uncharacteristic overthrows with his receivers. His performance showed on third down, where his third down off-target percentage went from 13.6% in 2024 and 13.3% in 2023 to 22.4% in 2025. It was less noticeable on other downs. The Bucs\u2019 playcalling took a step backward in 2025 with Josh Grizzard not able to fill the void left by Liam Coen as well, which would have put Mayfield in more favorable down-and-distance situations, but there were moments when Mayfield simply didn\u2019t execute.<\/p>\n

Well, Joe would list confidence in the Bucs\u2019 quarterback room at a 6. Yes, Joe has newfound concerns about Baker Mayfield and when judging the Bucs\u2019 backups\u2026 what backups? If Teddy Bridgewater was No. 2, then everything after that shouldn\u2019t have been on the roster because perhaps Bridgewater shouldn\u2019t have been on the roster.<\/p>\n

It has shaken Joe how Baker Mayfield fell off a cliff after the bye week this past season. At one point he was the leader in the clubhouse for MVP and led the Bucs to a 6-2 record. Then, after the bye, the Bucs with Mayfield, lost seven of their final nine games.<\/p>\n

Joe keeps coming back to the following two questions: Was Baker Mayfield so hurt that he could not lead the offense? And if he was, why then was Bridgewater not on the field?<\/p>\n

Also, if the Bucs figured they\u2019d get better play out of a maimed Mayfield than Bridgewater at 100 percent health, then why the hell was Bridgewater eating a roster spot?<\/p>\n

If Joe were Team Glazer, with all the quarterbacks expected to hit the draft in 2027, Joe would have to see how Mayfield rebounds this fall before placing a new contract in front of Mayfield to sign.<\/p>\n

Joe absolutely loves Mayfield\u2019s intangibles. But at the end of the day, the man has to win games when you need them the most down the stretch.<\/p>\n

If a starting quarterback can\u2019t do that, then why would you give the man a costly extension?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Baker Mayfield was an MVP frontrunner. So how comfortable are you with the Bucs\u2019 quarterback room right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2077],"tags":[211,2599,2598,7,6,704,250,2597,2596],"class_list":{"0":"post-704434","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","8":"tag-buccaneers","9":"tag-bucs-message-boards","10":"tag-bucs-news","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-tampa-bay","14":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","15":"tag-tampabay","16":"tag-tampabaybuccaneers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115957016603513252","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}