Fourth time's the charm? How Baker Mayfield, Bucs found an unlikely success in marriage

Baker Mayfield briefly dropped back before tucking the ball and barreling forward.

He zigged to the right and zagged to the left, resisting the Detroit Lions’ tackles just long enough to fall into the end zone.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers took a 20-16 lead they would not relinquish with 34 seconds to play, avenging their divisional-round playoff loss from eight months earlier as they improved to 2-0.

The series of events that had led to Tampa Bay advancing in the playoffs last season, and outlasting a good Lions team early in this one, were unexpected.

First, there was Mayfield’s success on the 11-yard quarterback draw. Buccaneers quarterbacks coach Thad Lewis ribbed Mayfield about the pro of what he viewed as a slimmer, more athletic frame than last year.

“I said, ‘Big Bake last year wouldn’t have been able to score on that,’” Lewis told Yahoo Sports. “But Slim Bake could.’”

Then, there was the passing game that had demanded enough respect from the Lions defense to set up the draw.

The Lions prepared for Mayfield fresh off a season opener in which he had thrown for 289 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions.

Even the Buccaneers, who take on the Atlanta Falcons on Thursday Night Football this week, didn’t see this coming 13 months ago, when late into training camp 2023 Mayfield was the league’s last eventual starter still in a quarterback battle with the season nearing.

The 2018 first overall pick’s career resurgence fascinates teams around the league as they try to understand the latest data point of a famously inexact science. Teams spend ample hours scouting top players, their analyses of quarterbacks arguably the most difficult as they try to project not only physical traits but also the processing and decision-making that influence quarterbacks more than any other position.

When top draft picks flame out, teams are left reeling from the missed dart. When those same players then succeed elsewhere, a whole new level of questions arise.

As quarterbacks like Mayfield find later-career stability, Yahoo Sports set out to understand: What can teams learn from this? How much should the culpability fall on a player, and how much the franchise?

At least some league voices don’t believe Mayfield’s resurgence would have come in Cleveland.

“It would be great to say, because he’s playing well now,” one NFC executive who scouted Mayfield told Yahoo Sports. “But… I think that Baker wouldn’t be having the success he has now. Sometimes players need a fresh start or a couple of fresh starts.

“This is his fourth team, so clearly a change of scenery was necessary multiple times.”

As Baker learned to dance, the Bucs made it back to the dance

During the pre-draft process in 2018, talent evaluators coveted Mayfield’s arm strength and his constant threat of scrambling. They valued his accuracy outside the numbers, some also praising his ability to needle throws into tight windows.

The Heisman Trophy recipient was productive in college and a winner.

He arrived to a talented Cleveland Browns offensive unit featuring an upper-echelon offensive line and skill players including Jarvis Landry, Nick Chubb and David Njoku. Mayfield led the Browns to the playoffs with a 2020 season featuring 26 touchdowns to eight interceptions but was largely inconsistent over the course of four years. Add in immaturity off the field and in his on-field risk-taking calculus, as well as a torn labrum that hampered his effectiveness in 2021, and the Browns traded Mayfield to the Carolina Panthers in 2022.

“He used to be frantic in the pocket and that showed in his release as well,” the NFC executive said. “He used to force the ball a lot, especially deep balls and then over the deep middle, which caused a lot of interceptions.

“He’s gotten more disciplined in terms of his pocket awareness and his strengths.”

The executive looks back now and thinks Mayfield has a much better handle on his strengths and weaknesses in Year 7 than he did in his first four career years. Improved footwork is arguably his biggest jump.

Mayfield joined Tampa Bay in 2023 after a season split between the Panthers and the Los Angeles Rams. He’d played a combined 10 games the year prior, but the twice-relocated quarterback coming back from (non-throwing) shoulder surgery won just two of those contests as he passed for 10 touchdowns to eight interceptions and averaged a career-low 180.3 yards per game.

So he arrived to the Bucs with plenty of experience and a resolution to streamline the mixed-bag output. Mayfield and Lewis had an honest conversation about his footwork: Mayfield was moving at a speed more fit for a college offense than the NFL, where route concepts can take longer to develop. He wasn’t always on beat for the dance necessary to pass accurately as a pro.

“When his feet are bad, I got a saying like, ‘Hey man, I know you drive a Bronco, but I need you to be smooth like a Mercedes right now,’” Lewis said. “So he knows, ‘OK, I’m moving a little too fast. I’m being a little too herky-jerky. Let me smooth out my rhythm and then, boom.’”

In Mayfield’s Week 4 matchup, the results again showed. The Buccaneers had studied the Eagles’ defensive tendency to play deep, understanding that short and intermediate routes should open up accordingly. Mayfield released the ball in 2.22 seconds on average, his 2.44-second average this season the quickest of his career and the second quickest across the league, per Next Gen Stats.

The result: Mayfield threw for 237 yards and two touchdowns in the first half alone, “Slim Bake” scoring on another quarterback draw for his third touchdown as the Buccaneers built a 24-0 lead before half against an Eagles team whom Vegas had favored. The Buccaneers ultimately improved to 3-1 with the 33-16 upset.

“Baker’s one of the best dual threat quarterbacks in the league,” Bucs five-time Pro Bowl receiver Mike Evans said. “He was making plays in the pocket, outside the pocket, extending plays.

“It’s really tough to game plan for him because he can do everything.”

What’s next for Baker Mayfield, Bucs?

The Denver Broncos, arguably, have game-planned most effectively for Mayfield this season.

Denver saw how depleted the Buccaneers’ offensive line was and exploited the vulnerability, ensuring Mayfield couldn’t get comfortable in the pocket as he absorbed seven sacks and nine total hits.

“If you can disrupt his rhythm and the ability to get into sync with him and his wide receivers, you stand a really good chance with him,” an AFC scout said. “Once he gets in that zone, then he can ad lib, he starts making the more difficult throws and he does them more frequently and that's just his rhythm.

“Once he gets going, it’s hard to stop him.”

Defenses are sure to challenge Mayfield in the coming weeks, the Falcons’ revamped defense coming for him Thursday night before matchups with the Baltimore Ravens, Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers file through within the span of a month.

But the Buccaneers and evaluators across the league believe that Mayfield has found the right recipe to continue performing at the best level of his career.

They don’t think his career-high 106.9 passer rating is a fluke, Mayfield completing a career-best 70.5% of passes for eight touchdowns and two interceptions in addition to his two rushing touchdowns the first month.

Offense coordinator Liam Cohen’s Sean McVay-style offense caters to Mayfield’s strengths, says one AFC defensive assistant who has coached in multiple of Mayfield’s career games. The assistant pointed to the emphasis on the run, play-action passing, boot legs and drop-back passing with progression reads.

Mayfield's making decisions that can be described as somewhere between safer and smarter, listening to coaches' imperatives that downfield shots are an option but not always the option.

“If you gotta make the perfect throw, you’re making the wrong throw,” Lewis tells Mayfield. “So check it down, live to see another down, understand first- and second-down decision-making.”

The Buccaneers are reaping the benefits of Mayfield’s personal and professional growth since he entered the league, and the bets they took signing him in 2023 and then extending him to a mid-market deal ahead of a new offensive coordinator are paying off.

It’s a win for Tampa and “good for the game,” the NFC executive said.

It also may never have happened if Mayfield had stuck with the Browns, even as they struggle through Deshaun Watson’s 28th-ranked passer rating while Mayfield thrives away from his first home.

“It’s no different than a personal life with relationships,” the NFC executive said. “If you’re dating somebody, they might not be the same person in this relationship as they are in the next.”

The Buccaneers know which person they want Mayfield to be: himself.

He’s not trying to be his predecessor Tom Brady, Mayfield drawing some ire after saying the seven-time Super Bowl champion’s leadership style left his locker room “high-strung” and “stressed out.”

Brady clapped back on last weekend's Bucs broadcast that he thought winning Super Bowls was fun — and yet, the 14-0 advantage the Bucs held over the Eagles as Brady spoke sent the message: Mayfield's colorful personality can breed winning, too.

He’s no longer fighting for respect as the starting quarterback of his own team — and he’s moving past fighting for respect across the league.

“Last year he was in a prove-it situation,” Lewis said. “This is more of, ‘I’m gonna show it wasn’t a fluke that I belong.’ He’s showing that he belongs in that top tier of quarterbacks.

“He's not where he can eventually be, but he's definitely working towards that.”