It's possible that Baker Mayfield's first season as a Tampa Bay Buccaneer will end where his 2022 season began. Of course, that's not the outcome that he or the Buccaneers are seeking.
In 2022, Mayfield debuted as Carolina's starting quarterback in Week One against Cleveland, the team that just a few months earlier had traded him to the Panthers. Now, as he prepares to travel with the Buccaneers back to Charlotte, he'll be facing the team that waived him 13 months ago in the regular season finale. And there is a lot on the line.
The Buccaneers need a win over the 2-14 Panthers on Sunday to secure their third consecutive division title, which would be the most important accomplishment yet in Mayfield's season of resurgence. The other potential outcome, of course, is a loss to their division rivals, after which there would be nothing but a quiet plane ride back to Tampa and directly into the 2024 offseason.
Players and coaches in the NFL are very much creatures of routine, with most weeks progressing through all the same beats day by day before culminating in a game on Sunday. For any team that doesn't make the playoffs, that routine ends rather abruptly, and even the teams that do make the playoffs face that fate eventually. From now until the end, every game the Bucs play will have either another week of work or, ultimately, a trophy on the line.
"That's something you try and teach the young guys, but until they're in it they don't necessarily understand or really grasp it," said Mayfield. "And I can say that first-hand from the first time I went to the playoffs. It's strange how it happens. You're playing for your job at that point, for the next week [and] just for another opportunity. It's a special atmosphere that it comes to be all about. You have to appreciate it. You have to understand that, 'Hey, when we get in this huddle it could be our last time together.' We'll see. Just make it happen and make it count."
The Bucs missed out on a chance to make this trip to Charlotte relatively insignificant when they lost to New Orleans in Week 17 and thus failed to clinch the NFC South crown. It was a sobering and mistake-filled loss after what had been an extremely encouraging upward climb through a four-game winning streak. That raised the stakes in Week 18, obviously, but Mayfield said it didn't shake the team's belief in itself.
"We have a ton of confidence in ourselves, and that doesn't change with how we played Sunday," he said. "It's just a matter of us doing our job right – keeping the focus extremely small [and] doing the little details right. Just knowing that this is our one opportunity to make the playoffs and let's go do it."
Mayfield also stressed that the Buccaneers can't stray from that aforementioned routine despite this being a do-or-die game.
"You're one-eleventh when you're on the field," he said. "Try to execute the best you can and good things will happen. That needs to be the mentality. Playoff teams, and the great teams, are the ones who don't mess up. That's an extremely high level of focus on your job at hand, even if it's the simplest play that you've done over and over all season. It's the focus and the little details, so you can't change your approach on that."
Mayfield signed a one-year contract with the Buccaneers in March, essentially a 'prove-it' deal that he made the most of. That means, of course, that there is no guarantee he'll still be in Tampa next fall. It seems likely that both sides would be interested in extending the relationship, but that has been deemed a topic for the offseason, which hopefully doesn't start on Monday. Mayfield, knowing how suddenly any NFL season can end, simply wants to enjoy all that is left in this one.
"It's meant the world to me just to be able to be in a stable place, to be the best version of myself, to [do] what they've enabled me to do," he said. "The organization, the staff, our locker room – it's just a special place so I've truly appreciated it. I hope the guys know that. I try to reflect that with just who I am every day coming to work, bringing energy and passion into it.
"It's been great for me, but yeah, [we're] not done yet."
