Baker Mayfield’s Current Salary Reflects His Place in the QB Market

Opening discussions on a contract extension between quarterback Baker Mayfield and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are not going well, with there being a clear difference of opinion between how the team is valuing the veteran and what he believes he could command on the open market.

There is still plenty of time between now and the start of the regular season which when Mayfield says he will cut off any talks about a new deal. 

He is in the final year of a contract that pays him roughly $30M a year, and while he has certainly stabilized the position for Tampa, he remains an erratic performer and someone who lacks the ideal physical characteristics to play the position at the highest reaches.

Mayfield is also 31 now, an age at which his legs cannot be counted on as much to get him out of trouble, as he remains undersized for the position. 

Teams watched Russell Wilson, a player with some physical comps to Mayfield, go from top starter to poor backup in rapid succession, and after former top five picks like Tua Tagovailoa and Kyler Murray are playing on the veteran minimum for their new teams (also undersized QBs who have yet to live up to their draft billing like Mayfield, a former first-overall pick himself), NFL contract negotiators believe Mayfield is playing a dangerous game by speaking out like he has about the situation.

What’s Mayfield Worth Now?

“No one is looking at Baker Mayfield and saying that guy is taking us to the Super Bowl,” said a GM for a team that has been looking at quarterbacks in recent years. 

“He’ll be 32 (if he hits free agency), he’s been injured, this will be his fifth team, is it? If he can get a coupla more years at $30 (million a year), he should take it.” 

Of course, team executives are in the habit of trying to tamp down contracts, but the reality is Mayfield is probably not going to age well, teams are starting to pull back on automatically overpaying mid-tier quarterbacks as this offseason spoke to, and the 2027 QB draft class projects to be far better than the last two, for starters.

He doesn’t have age and upside working for him on what was a very limited bridge quarterback market, as it did for Malik Willis this past offseason, and teams going with older stopgaps like Pittsburgh and Indianapolis are not going to be looking to pay Mayfield $40M a season to try to extend being quasi-competitive.

By the end of training camp, it would not surprise NFL execs if Mayfield accepts the bird in hand, that is, if the Bucs, who could still utilize a franchise tag as well, are still extending it.