{"id":797030,"date":"2026-08-01T08:01:25","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T08:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/797030\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T08:01:25","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T08:01:25","slug":"somebodys-untruthful-about-the-baker-mayfield-extension-and-signs-point-to-mayfield-joebucsfan-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/797030\/","title":{"rendered":"Somebody’s Untruthful About The Baker Mayfield Extension – And Signs Point To Mayfield – JoeBucsFan.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The strong Baker Mayfield insinuation yesterday that the Bucs offered him a two-year contract extension at less than $50 million per year is highly dubious.<\/p>\n

Mayfield told Jeremy Fowler of ESPN that he lobbied the Bucs to be in the $50 million quarterback club without asking for a change-the-market deal. But, per Mayfield, he didn\u2019t get that offer.<\/p>\n

A dozen NFL quarterbacks have contracts that pay an average of $50 million or more per season, per OverTheCap.com.<\/p>\n

Jeremy Fowler:\u00a0Did you make a stance that you belong in that top-10 [quarterback pay] range \u2014 50-plus million dollars? That\u2019s sort of the market and where you are.<\/p>\n

Baker Mayfield:\u00a0Yeah. And I told [the Bucs] and I said it publicly, I was never trying to reset the market. I know where I fit in on that. I\u2019m not over-realistic on that. But it\u2019s also, I know just to be compensated and put in that category, and salary cap keeps going up. And the guys that are going to re-sign next year, it\u2019s going to look a lot different. So, at the end of the day, it\u2019ll probably be still top-15 [quarterback pay] next year at this time. But it\u2019s unfortunate they failed to recognize it.<\/p>\n

Fowler: How far away were they from that range?<\/p>\n

Mayfield:\u00a0Pretty far.<\/p>\n

Without providing hard numbers, that\u2019s Mayfield essentially saying he didn\u2019t get offered close to $50 million annually for 2027 and 2028. His contract expires after this season.<\/p>\n

Fowler also asked Mayfield what value the Bucs placed on him in a contract-extension offer to make him feel disrespected and undervalued.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was all three \u2014 between years, average [salary] and guarantees,\u201d Mayfield said. \u201cProbably the most disappointing is years. Didn\u2019t get offered anything over two [years].<\/p>\n

Jenna Laine of ESPN.com wrote a story about this yesterday afternoon<\/a>, and then came a mysterious night edit to the story. Fowler noted an update on X<\/a> directing fans to check it out.<\/p>\n

It sounds like Fowler talked to Mayfield\u2019s agent \u2014 and someone tied to the Bucs \u2014 and Mayfield wasn\u2019t truthful when it came to the money on a two-year extension.<\/p>\n

The Buccaneers felt their offers in the final days of the negotiation were competitive, including a two-year deal worth slightly above $100 million in total, sources told Fowler.<\/p>\n

Several factors went into Mayfield turning down the Bucs\u2019 overtures, sources told Fowler:<\/p>\n

Mayfield felt the structure of the contract was not suitable, mainly the guaranteed money.
\nMayfield was adamant about wanting a longer commitment than two years.
\nMayfield used contract comps such as\u00a0Green Bay\u2019s\u00a0Jordan Love\u00a0($55 million per year),\u00a0Jacksonville\u2019s\u00a0Trevor Lawrence\u00a0($55 million) and\u00a0San Francisco\u2019s\u00a0Brock Purdy\u00a0($53 million) during the negotiation process. Mayfield\u2019s camp felt Mayfield was among the league\u2019s best bargain players in recent years, ranking third in passing yards (12,237) and second in touchdown passes (95) since 2023. That had to change.
\nAnd, perhaps mainly, Mayfield was long dismayed by the team\u2019s low initial offer in June, to the point that one source close to him wondered whether that fueled his direct tone in his press conferences weeks later.<\/p>\n

By the time the Bucs were set to report Tuesday, Mayfield called things off. Still, even without hitting Mayfield\u2019s direct number, the Bucs felt they were closer in range than perceived, sources told Fowler.<\/p>\n

Before June minicamp, Joe was told the Bucs were prepared to pay Mayfield more than $50 million annually on an extension \u2014 real money, not mystery math common in NFL contracts. The team wasn\u2019t hiding its desire to \u201cwrite that check,\u201d as Buccaneers co-owner Joel Glazer said in the following exhange with JoeBucsFan.com<\/a> at the NFL annual meeting in April.<\/p>\n

JoeBucsFan.com: Is it your hope that something is resolved with Baker this offseason, with an extension that makes him a franchise quarterback beyond the three-year contract he has now?<\/p>\n

Joel Glazer: That\u2019s part of [GM] Jason [Licht\u2019s] planning and everything. And I know Jason is looking at all, not only [Baker], any other contract. And it\u2019s a constant thing that you look at. That\u2019s something that Jason and [assistant GM] Mike [Greenberg] and his staff, [VP of football research] Jackie [Davidson], carefully evalute and there\u2019s a time and a place for everything. And everything always takes care of itself.<\/p>\n

JoeBucsFan.com: But is Baker your guy? Are you all on board with Baker?<\/p>\n

Joel Glazer: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, he\u2019s gone above and beyond anything we could have asked or hoped of Baker. Everybody loves him. He performs on the field, gives 250 percent when he\u2019s on that field. And that\u2019s all you can ask.<\/p>\n

Before this line of questioning, Glazer said he has no issue paying top dollar for a franchise quarterback because that means things are going well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t hurt at all to write that check,\u201d Glazer said. \u201cIt\u2019s something that all the teams do if you have a good quarterback.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was Mayfield telling the truth yesterday about his extension offer? Or does Mayfield have a bumbling agent who didn\u2019t properly explain the Bucs\u2019 offer to his client? That\u2019s unclear.<\/p>\n

Joe has no reason to believe the Bucs changed their stance on Mayfield or were foolish enough to offer Mayfield the equivalent (or less) than the projected 2027 franchise tag value and think he would smile and like that \u2014 and not make a public stink.<\/p>\n

Sage of Tampa Bay Sports Ira Kaufman, the venerable JoeBucsFan.com columnist, has said many times over the past year that Team Glazer \u201ccouldn\u2019t be happier with Mayfield\u201d and has \u201cno desire to start over with a new quarterback.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bucs fans should feel confident taking Kaufman\u2019s words to the bank.<\/p>\n

Mayfield is an emotional guy, so it makes sense that he\u2019d be incensed by the Bucs not offering him an extension that includes the 2029 season. That\u2019s fair. But to think the Bucs didn\u2019t try to put Mayfield in the $50 million club is farfetched at best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The strong Baker Mayfield insinuation yesterday that the Bucs offered him a two-year contract extension at less than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":797031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[5961,5960,399,398,396,397,99,1824],"class_list":["post-797030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-bucs-message-boards","tag-bucs-news","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports","tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/797031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}