Why Mayfield and Bucs aren't on the same page
Mike Florio and Chris Simms discuss Baker Mayfield reportedly being set to play without a new contract, breaking down why the Buccaneers and the quarterback aren't on the same page in negotiations.
Video Transcript
Well, one guy got the contract yesterday.
Another guy that we talked at length about yesterday has decided that it's time to move forward with no new deal.
Baker Mayfield.
And there was a report from ESPN that progress was not being made between the Buccaneers and Mayfield, and then not long after that, Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times said, "That's it.
It's done.
No further negotiations."
That was the Mayfield position.
Once training camp opens, we're going forward.
It's not binding.
The Buccaneers could show up today and say, "All right.
All right, fine.
You win.
We blink.
We'll give you what you want."
And of course, Mayfield could say, "I told you.
I told you, and you didn't do it in compliance with my preferred deadline, so no.
We'll talk again after the season ends."
But for now, no deal.
For now, Mayfield goes forward, and ultimately, what kind of a year does he have?
Is it so good that the Buccaneers have no choice but to use the franchise tag and pay him nearly 48 million for 2027?
Or do the Buccaneers roll the dice on their belief And I don't know if we said this clearly yesterday.
I know I've been saying it repeatedly for the past few months though, and writing about it.
The Buccaneers believe they're gonna pay him more than anyone else, so they have a level of confidence here that if it does come down to Mayfield hitting the market, whatever the Buccaneers will pay is more than what someone else will pay.
And I don't know, depending upon how he does this year, I don't know.
Yeah.
And he's not required to take the highest bid.
He could take less.
We've said this.
He could take less somewhere else just to prove a point to the Buccaneers for not valuing him the way they should have when they should have.
Yeah, or just to be in the right situation r- really.
But I, I am surprised by this.
I am.
You know, and, and, as we talked about yesterday, I had Rick Stroud on my, my podcast on Monday, and we talked about this.
And, you know, his thought was that during, during the Monday show, that if the contracts were going in a positive direction and it was all going the right way, he didn't think Baker Mayfield would go, "Hey, no, it's over.
It's training camp.
It's over.
It's done."
He thought he would let it go.
So this tells me, and, and now with Ri- r- you know, Rick saying something to, to kind of stamp it home here, that yeah, they're not even close.
And Baker's, like, fed up with it.
He doesn't wanna deal with it.
That would be my inkling as far as the situation goes.
And it's a little surprising to hear, and as we talked about yesterday, you know, yeah, you're playing with fire with, you know, Mr. Chippy Chipster in, in Baker Mayfield.
Well, when Baker Mayfield first addressed it during the off-season program, he said that they were nowhere close to where he thought they would be.
And for these deals, even though we're talking about multi-million dollar transactions, let's put it in perspective.
You've got 300 million per year in cap space to play with.
You get desensitized to the zeros.
This is what they do.
And you're talking about a quarterback, and it shouldn't be all that difficult to figure out quickly whether or not the two circles of the Venn diagram are going to touch or whether or not there's gonna be a gap there.
It shouldn't take long to figure it out.
We know what we want, you know what you want, and we can't get to where you are.
Now, sometimes the negotiations can be a little awkward.
People can violate the norms of basic negotiating, but you have to find a way to just get The objective is for the player to get the team's best number and the team to get the player's best number, and then let's just see where it is.
Yeah, yeah.
And can we get this done?
Right.
Can we bridge this gap?
And they couldn't.
They can't.
And now we move forward.
And it's a lot of risk for Baker Mayfield, the guy who will bet on himself to the point of leaving Texas Tech, not having a spot on the Oklahoma football team, enrolling at Oklahoma to be a student, and hoping he gets a chance to try out for the football team.
That's the ultimate self-bet.
If he never plays another game in the NFL, he has won the ultimate self-bet.
So what the hell?
He'll, he'll, he'll let it ride.
He'll double down.
He'll make the bet on himself again.
Yeah, I, I don't think he has any fear of that.
There, there's no question.
I, I, you know, I'm, I'd be interested to know what, what, what he's asking for.
I don't know.
I don't know the details of that.
You know, you said it right yesterday.
This isn't one where you go, "Oh, wait, he's so good that he's next, and he should be paid as the top guy in the sport, or the second to- or the second or third."
I get that, you know?
And, and, and maybe that's the game the Bucs are playing.
They're going, "Wait, no, you're really good, but you're not better than that guy.
You're not better than that guy.
You're not better than that guy."
Okay, we know that.
Yeah, I'm, I'm not gonna say he's better than Mahomes or Stafford, right?
But there's some other guys on the list where he's gonna look at and go, "Wait, I, I, I think I am as good as Jordan Love right now," whose, you know, yearly compensation is what?
I believe fourth in the NFL as, as we sit here.
Yeah.
So- Mid-50s.
Right.
And- And now that one was a deal- I, it's just simple that we said was done too early, right?
But, but he deserves- Yeah to be in the top, you know, seven, eight, nine, right?
To me, that, at least that, with a new contract as we go into the future, I don't think there's any question about that.
I expect him to get to the 50s at least, and that's where I, you know, I, I'd be interested to know the details of what's going on here.
I suspect he wants it to start with a five, and they want it to start with a four.
And they're probably bogged down around mid-40s- Yeah and he's trying to get to low 50s.
Right.
That's the kind of gap that would be big enough that you say, "Screw it.
There's no point talking anymore."
Look- Sounds Brock Purdy Niners-ish that way I suspect it went like this.
Yeah, go ahead.
Sorry.
Right.
Yeah.
I suspect it went like this.
And I'm not gonna name names.
You've already named a couple.
I'm gonna name one name coming up.
But if you're representing Baker Mayfield, you're looking at these guys who are peppered throughout the 50s who aren't Baker Mayfield.
It's that simple.
The market is the market- Yeah as Tua Tagovailoa said- Yeah two years ago.
And I think the Tua Tagovailoa contract helps prove the Buccaneers' reaction.
Exactly right.
Because- Right when you have these contracts that are paying these sums that are at the top of the market- Jason Licht, the GM of the Buccaneers may be saying, "Well, they're stupid and I'm not."
Okay?
"They shouldn't have done it."
Yeah.
"So don't make me do something that I would have never done.
They did something I'd never do, so their decision is irrelevant to mine because I wouldn't do it."
And the Dolphins wish they hadn't done it.
And when the Dolphins are paying Tua more than $50 million this year to play for the Falcons, and taking a $99 million dead money charge over the next two years, that makes Jason Licht's position, in his mind- Totally stronger.
Totally.
"I'm not doing a stupid-ass deal."
Yeah.
So these other teams, that's their business.
The Buccaneers aren't doing that.
We're not doing that, and I think that that, that So it, both, both are reasonable.
For Mayfield, it's reasonable to say, "I'm better than this guy, I'm better than this guy, I'm better than this guy, I'm better than this guy, and they're all making 50 plus."
And for Licht to say, "But that team's stupid, that team's stupid, that team's stupid, and that team's stupid."
Yeah.
And that's how you keep a deal- Yeah from happening.
No, I, I, I don't doubt some of that, of what you're saying there.
I do think the NFL is trying to self-correct itself a little bit in the quarterback market, and what, you know, what we've talked about, right?
And what we've made fun of.
And, you know, how could You know, whether it's Tua, hey, Jordan Love, was that a little rich at the time for what he had done?
Yeah, it was.
Jordan Love's really damn good, don't get me wrong.
But, you know, did that maybe exceed what he had done at that moment?
Sure, definitely.
You know?
Trevor Lawrence, you could kind of say the same exact thing with it too.
So there's a few there that you look at to go, "Huh, I understand that."
But I do think the NFL, you know, heard us making fun of that for a while.
I had a l- I mean, tons of people when I was making fun of some of these contracts, and why would you do that, and who you're negotiating against.
You know, people in the NFL going, "Yeah, I couldn't agree more of what you're saying.
It's getting out of hand here."
Just 'cause you're, like you just said, just 'cause you're next doesn't mean you get to be the highest paid guy.
That's not it.
And I do think the NFL is trying to self-correct itself that way.
And Jason Licht is, you know, he's been a part of the Bucs.
He's been fortunate so far.
Ever since he's been there, he hasn't really had to pay any quarterback top-notch dollar that way.
And that's one of the reasons they've been really damn good.
He's been able to spread the wealth, almost like New England when he was there, and, and, and put it into the rest of the football team, and that's why they've been in the playoffs here.
But I do think we're at a time here where, yeah, 50s, 40s, right?
I think Baker Mayfield is worthy of being in the 50 department.
I do.
You know?
But then, then again, to your point, Jason Licht's gonna look at it and go, "Hey, Sam Darnold won the Super Bowl last year.
He's making 33."
And, and of course we know that's low, that's low, and he would get more if he was up for a, a new contract right now.
So, I do think Baker Mayfield deserves, you know, something with a five.
I do.
But you know, and we don't know what Sam Darnold's gonna do this year with a new offensive coordinator, and we don't know how much of that Seahawks machine was driven by him.
Yeah.
All I know is Baker Mayfield went to Seattle last year and lit up the Seahawks, and we saw how the Seahawks became interested in Sam Howell after he went there and lit up the Seahawks playing for the Commanders.
We saw how the Seahawks became interested in Darnold when the Vikings went there late in the 2024 season, and Darnold lit up the Seahawks.
And if Darnold regresses, and if Mayfield's available, I'm telling you, the Seahawks are gonna be thinking about making the same swap they made from Geno Smith to Sam Darnold, if Darnold regresses.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm not saying he's going to.
Yeah.
I'm just saying if he does.
There's an if in there, but man, there's gonna be teams that, that are more interested in Mayfield.
If he has a big year this year, they're gonna be more interested this time around than they were the last time his contract in Tampa- Totally Bay expired- Totally when he had done the one-year deal.
Totally.
The, without, without question.
I mean, he's, he's played phenomenal football ever since he's gotten with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
That's another thing.
I'm just sitting here, you know, looking at quarterback contracts going, "Yeah, his camp's also gonna look at it and go, 'No, no.
Baker's been better than Daniel Jones the last three years.'"
And you know I love Daniel Jones.
And they're gonna go, "And he has an Achilles heel that's, a, a Achilles tendon that's, that's intact."
Like, and he, he, he got $44 million a year this off-season.
Right?
Is that Am I right there?
Or maybe it was even more than that.
44.
So- 44.
Right.
44.
So I, I would expect it to be north of that.
That's for sure.
And I do think, you know, as you've heard me say, and it's been stated, hey, we're sitting here, Jalen Hurts.
Yeah, I know he's won a Super Bowl.
It's 51 million a year, but I, I would take Baker Mayfield, and I think the NFL would take Baker Mayfield all day over Jalen Hurts.
So, interesting conversation, and you're right, there's a lot of different ways you can kind of look at it right now in this quarterback market.
Week in and week out, what the Buccaneers do, what Baker Mayfield does, is gonna stand out more than it ordinarily would because we have this, this looming question of what happens in the off-season.
And we know how intense the coverage is in the off-season, and all the teams reshuffle the deck.
Teams are looking for new starting quarterbacks.
Any team that is thinking, "We may have to make a decision for 2027," has to be watching everything that Baker Mayfield does, and evaluating whether or not he may be the guy that they wanna pursue.
All right, let's take a break.
