Baker Mayfield is staying in Tampa Bay on the richest contract in Buccaneers history, and one NFL insider is already asking whether the team just bought itself a familiar kind of trouble.
The club agreed this week to a three-year, $165 million extension that pays Mayfield about $55 million a season and keeps him under contract through 2029. The agreement ended months of stalled talks and made the former No. 1 overall pick the highest-paid player the franchise has ever signed.
NFL insider Charles Robinson immediately compared the deal to the big extensions given to Tua Tagovailoa and Kyler Murray. All three quarterbacks were high draft picks. All three have injury questions that have followed them into their prime years.
“Mayfield’s banged-up 2025 season has to have some lingering concerns, even if it was complicated by so many other injuries,” Robinson wrote. “Tua Tagovailoa and Kyler Murray signed big extensions under the historical specter of injuries and were abject disasters.”
The caution is rooted in recent history. Tagovailoa signed a four-year, $212.4 million extension with the Miami Dolphins in 2024. After that deal, Miami went 12-13 in games he started, and he missed nine games over that stretch. The Dolphins released him after two seasons.
Miami is still paying for the move. The team took on a record dead-cap charge of about $99.2 million, spread over 2026 and 2027, while Tagovailoa signed a one-year deal with the Atlanta Falcons and is playing on a veteran-minimum salary.
Murray’s contract followed a similar arc. Arizona signed him to a five-year, $230.5 million extension in 2022. He missed six games in 2022, nine in 2023 and 12 in 2025. The Cardinals went 16-25 in games he started after the extension.
Arizona later cut him and absorbed a 2026 dead-cap hit in the mid-$40 million range, with more leftover money due in 2027. Murray signed a one-year, $1.3 million contract with the Minnesota Vikings.
Mayfield, 31, has not disappeared from the lineup the way those two often did. He started all 17 games in each of the past three seasons for Tampa Bay. The concern is what happens when he stays on the field while hurt.
That is the part of his résumé that still follows him from Cleveland. After winning a playoff game with the Browns, Mayfield tried to play through an injury. Cleveland went 6-8 in that stretch. His completion rate dropped two percent, his touchdown rate fell 1.2 percent and his interception rate rose 1.5 percent. The Browns moved on and traded for Deshaun Watson.
A similar slide showed up last season. In the first nine weeks of 2025, the Buccaneers were 6-3. Mayfield threw 16 touchdowns and two interceptions and averaged 243 passing yards a game.
Then the injuries stacked up. He sprained the MCL and PCL in his right knee during a Week 2 win at Houston, later dealt with a biceps injury and a bone bruise, and suffered a shoulder sprain against the Los Angeles Rams. Tampa Bay finished 2-6 the rest of the way. Mayfield threw 10 touchdowns and nine interceptions and averaged 187 yards a game.
For the full season, he completed 63.2 percent of his passes for 3,693 yards, 26 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. That was a sharp drop from 2024, when he threw for 4,500 yards and 41 touchdowns and earned a Pro Bowl berth.
Tampa Bay is still betting on the version of Mayfield who revived the franchise after Tom Brady retired. Owner Joel Glazer called the new contract “the largest in the history of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers” and said it “reflects our belief in Baker, and his leadership both on and off the field.”
The fine print shows the team did not go all-in without an exit ramp. About $110 million is guaranteed, covering roughly two of the three years. The third year is not fully guaranteed, which lowers the cost of moving on if Mayfield’s play falls off again.
Mayfield has called the deal “life-changing.” He also said earlier this offseason, “We built roots here in Tampa.” When talks stalled before training camp, he admitted he felt “disrespected a little bit.”
Robinson’s warning is not that Mayfield cannot play. It is that Tagovailoa and Murray looked worth the money when they were healthy, then the injuries piled up and two franchises were left resetting at quarterback.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers finished 8-9 in 2025. If Mayfield stays upright and plays like he did in September and October, the $165 million deal will look like a bet they had to make. If last year’s second-half fade becomes the pattern, Tampa Bay will look a lot like Miami and Arizona did after they paid their quarterbacks and hoped the injuries would stop.
