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Jenna Laine
TAMPA, Fla. — Baker Mayfield has seen the perception himself change dramatically from the time he was a first overall draft pick with the Cleveland Browns to being what some have described as an MVP candidate in his third year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
A video emerged after the Bucs’ 38-35 victory at the Seattle Seahawks of Mayfield responding to trash talk from a Seahawks fan in the tunnel just before kickoff. Fingers were pointed. Expletives were exchanged.
“You’re gonna be real f—ing quiet at halftime,” Mayfield said. “You’re a f—ing p—y.”
Mayfield sought out the fan after the victory too, in which he pointed at him while triumphantly skipping into the tunnel, with the fan yelling, “You still suck! You still suck!”
In Cleveland, where the Browns selected him first overall in the 2018 NFL draft and where he ultimately went 29-30 before being traded to the Carolina Panthers, that exchange may have been received differently.
But as a member of the Bucs, with a 4-1 start to the 2025 season, having led his team to four thrilling come-from-behind victories within the final minute, it feels different. And those are the most by any team in its first five games since the 1970 merger, according to Elias Sports.
“Early on in my career it was ‘cocky, immature.’ Now it’s ‘moxie’ and ‘he’s a dog.’ Same s— different day,” Mayfield said Wednesday. “As long as you play well, they change the narrative, but you’ve just gotta be yourself, and I’ve always been like that.”
He had just turned 23 years old when he entered the NFL. It took a four-team odyssey for him to find his footing long-term, where he’s playing some of the best football of his career at age 30. He has said on multiple occasions that the Bucs “let me be myself,” and he believes that’s helped him propel them to two division titles in the post-Tom Brady era.
Then away from football, he and his wife of six years, Emily, have a daughter, Kova Jade, who will turn 2 in April, and the family has been very active in the Tampa Bay community. Their charity, the Baker and Emily Mayfield Foundation, which they launched before he was even formally named the starter in 2023, is known for supporting lesser-known non-profits. That, and his blue collar-style of quarterbacking has resonated with the fanbase. But there’s also been a growing number of fans across the league rooting for Mayfield as he continues to write his comeback story.
“At the core, definitely the same, but matured in different ways,” Mayfield said. “I’m not worried about little things that don’t matter. Now if you put it in the landscape of a competitive football game — in that atmosphere — that’ll never change.”
Bucs wide receiver and former University of Oklahoma teammate Sterling Shepard, who has gotten a front row seat to Mayfield’s turnaround in Tampa, but also his trash talk, said, “He’s not scared to bite back at somebody that’s trying to go at him and we all love that about him. … We love that energy and everybody feeds off of him.”
Outside linebacker Haason Reddick, who signed with the Bucs this offseason to try and get his own career back on track after a down year in 2024, has felt that jolt on the other side of the ball.
“We got nothing but confidence in Bake. He’s done it time and time again already this season,” Reddick said. “Definitely my fave for MVP candidate as of right now. He’s balling at an unprecedented level.”
