Quarterback Baker Mayfield is going into the final season of the three-year contract he signed with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2024. He is seeking a new extension and hoped to have that bit of business done well before this point in the 2026 calendar year. Mayfield set a deadline of the start of training camp, which was on Wednesday, after which he does not plan to negotiate with the team during the season.<\/p>\n
As Mayfield put it on Thursday, he is now focused solely on playing football.<\/p>\n
“It’s disappointing to say the least, but it’s ball [from] here and I know I’m going to have a good year, he said. “I know this team, the things that we went through last year put us in a good spot for this year. Depth-wise, a lot of guys have been thrown to the fire, to be able to grow and learn fast. It didn’t go the way we wanted, but it’s a new season and it’s going to help us in the long run this year. Added some new pieces, so I’m excited about it. It’s all ball from here.”<\/p>\n
Just as team representatives have voiced on numerous occasions the desire to keep Mayfield in Tampa for many years to come, the ninth-year quarterback has never disguised his own feelings about staying put. The first-overall pick in the 2018 draft, Mayfield spent a bit of time bouncing around the league after the Cleveland Browns traded for Deshaun Watson and shipped him to Carolina. In 2023, he initially signed with the Buccaneers on something like a one-year prove-it deal, and has since gotten his career back on track.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been pretty upfront and honest about my feelings about Tampa, it being home for our family, raising kids here,” said Mayfield. We love it here. I wanted a deal done and set the deadline and told them it was going to be all ball after that, and I did mean that.<\/p>\n
“I’m at the point in my career, understanding what I’ve brought to this franchise. One, I’m very thankful for the chance they gave me \u2013 do not get me wrong on that. But I also know, I really know what I’ve brought to this franchise, leadership-wise and even play-wise. It’s been some of the best years of my career, and I think it’s only going to trend upwards.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Quarterback Baker Mayfield is going into the final season of the three-year contract he signed with the Tampa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":358170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[113857,9909,589,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-358169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-2026-schedule-release","tag-baker-mayfield","tag-featured","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}