The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were enjoying one of the best runs in franchise history over the last half-decade. Tom Brady’s decision to end his career with the organization gave them a perfect starting point, including winning Super Bowl 55.
Things proceeded smoothly after his retirement as well, as they found the perfect reclamation project in Baker Mayfield. Three years into his tenure, though, one insider is perplexed by some of the developments in 2025.
Baker Mayfield Brings Different Problems for the Buccaneers
Starting his career with the Cleveland Browns, Mayfield seemed like the answer to the quarterback woes that had plagued the franchise since time immemorial. However, the Browns’ decision to trade for Deshaun Watson in 2022 pushed him out the door.
That led to a brief but encouraging starting stint with the Los Angeles Rams. That prompted the Buccaneers to sign him to a one-year, prove-it deal. He was immediately excellent, regaining the form that made him such a dynamic presence under center.
Leading Tampa Bay to the playoffs, he earned a larger paycheck with a three-year deal worth $100 million. Mayfield was somehow even better in 2024, as the team once again made it to the postseason.
Unfortunately, it has gone downhill since then, with the 2025 campaign a major letdown for the organization. Missing the playoffs for the first time after five consecutive trips, it sparked some major changes to the roster, including parting ways with franchise icon Mike Evans.
A downright mediocre year saw Mayfield put up just 3,693 passing yards and 26 touchdowns, while the team was below .500 for the season. As a result, he landed at number 22 on PFSN’s QB Impact Metrics, a huge downgrade from number four in 2024.
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However, a lot of the issues with his play were attributed to injuries. As the roster continued to suffer with major blows across the board, Mayfield tried to soldier on through injuries of his own. Ultimately, that led to diminished production, despite the valiant effort.
For Mike Florio of NBC Sports, though, the mentality from the star quarterback could cause some major issues for the team and the NFL. Even though admirable, the concerns were multifaceted for the host of “Pro Football Talk.”
His first order of concern came when Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, who had early access to this year’s Quarterback season, in which Mayfield was one of the featured quarterbacks, made a revelation about the former Heisman Trophy winner.
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“Rick Stroud pointed out that in this year’s Quarterback series, Mayfield says he injured the PCL and the MCL in his knee in week two. And the implication that I gathered from Stroud’s tweet, he dealt with it all year.”
In correlation to that assumption was the injury report for the season for the Buccaneers, where Florio pointed out, “And knee shows up on the injury report a few times. The first time was week five, shows up again, I believe, in week eight.”
Unfortunately, the veteran insider views that development as a major problem, both in the present and the future, for both Mayfield and the Buccaneers. “But if it happened in Week 2, and if you’re basically saying, ‘Hey, I was injured all year. My knee was injured all year.’ You’re flirting with a can of worms.”
The problem with that discrepancy was twofold. After the Lamar Jackson controversy last season, the injury reports have become a bigger issue. But Florio also explored the possibility of Mayfield keeping the injury to himself, which would no longer be the team’s fault.
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However, if that were the case, then a new problem could arise for them. “Even if it’s perfectly legitimate, it creates inside information because there will be a group of individuals who know the truth. The inner circle knows the truth.”
With the focus on gambling scandals growing exponentially in recent years, it could cause some major problems for Mayfield with this situation. NBA figures Terry Rozier, Malik Beasley, and Chauncey Billups are dealing with repercussions related to gambling cases.
While not as extreme, the injury reports and different levels of information being available for the people in the “inner circle” and outside could lead to betting troubles.
Explaining the problem, Florio added, “The danger of this anytime it happens is that one of those individuals who knows about the injury is going to misappropriate that information for betting purposes, either by sharing it, by selling it, by betting based upon that information. And that’s the wild west.”
It remains to be seen if the revelations made through the Quarterback series lead to some serious consequences for Mayfield in the coming months. But for the time being, with a lot of changes to the Bucs roster, the focus for the group has to be on the upcoming season and finding their way back to the postseason.
