Baker Mayfield’s MVP-caliber start to 2025 hit a major midseason spurt and spiraled out of control as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers finished 8-9 after a 5-1 start.
Recently retired Bucs quarterback Lavonte David joined Podcast Arena and revealed how much pain Mayfield played through.
“I’m telling you, Baker was going through a lot,” David said. “Baker had a lot of injuries that you don’t expect a quarterback to play through. He had the oblique injury, he had the shoulder injury, he had a lot of things — like an ankle injury, a knee injury — he had a lot of things that he was going through. The season is over now, I can talk about that, but he was really trying and he was trying to push through things. A player that we needed to be. with.
Mayfield started his 2025 season on a sensational note, making his name known as an MVP candidate as he led the Bucs to several thrilling victories, including throwing for 379 yards and 2 TDs on 29-of-33 passing against the eventual Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks in a Week 5 victory. However, after a four-sack loss against Detroit in Week 7, Mayfield never looked right and injuries began to pile up for the Bucs.
The 30-year-old sat out the second half of the Week 12 loss to the Los Angeles Rams after injuring his non-throwing shoulder, but threw every other pass in 2025 for the Bucs, despite dealing with injuries.
David believes the Bucs’ offensive struggles were a combination of players missing time, including star Mike Evans, who put young players in key roles, and the injuries that hampered the QB’s ability to make plays, which had underscored his early season success.
“But you lose your top two targets in Mike (Evans) and Chris (Godwin) and you’re playing a lot of rookies,” David said. “You’re playing with Emeka (Egbuka), even though he had a good year, he went No. 1 and people were hitting on him, people were locking on him and he probably didn’t know how to handle it. You’ve got Tez Johnson, you’ve got J-Mac (Jalen McMillan) coming back from injury. We’ve been missing our key door with the offensive line all year, so it’s hard for him to deal with things like that.
“I don’t think Baker should have been blamed at all because in previous years he’s playing lights out. Early in the season he’s playing lights out. He scored 38 points in the eventual Super Bowl champion. I would never blame Bake for that.”
Mayfield enters the final year of his 3-year, $100 million contract in Tampa in 2024. After playing for relatively cheap, the soon-to-be 31-year-old is in line for a raise, potentially jumping into the $50 million per year bracket. The question is whether the Bucs believe — as David obviously does — that the struggles in 2025 were a blip on the radar caused by injuries and not a sign of future success.