With Damar Hamlin and Joe Flacco receiving all the AP Comeback Player of the Year award considerations, one former Texas high school football quarterback had a remarkable career resurgence.
After nearly being out of the league after stints with both the Carolina Panthers and Los Angeles Rams last season, former Lake Travis grad Baker Mayfield led the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a franchise-record third consecutive NFC South division title and a team-record-tying fourth consecutive playoff appearance.
It wasn’t supposed to be like this with the Bucs. Pundits fully expected them to tank; Mayfield had other plans, completing 64.3% of his passes for 4,044 yards and 28 passing touchdowns. He ended the year with a passer rating of 94.6. In two games into the postseason, Mayfield posted a passer rating of 106.3—the highest postseason mark by a quarterback in franchise history.
Tampa Bay got him at a discounted rate of $4 million for one season, hiring Mayfield as a stopgap filler after posting a paltry 2-10 starting record the previous season. The former #1 pick with the Cleveland Browns was unceremoniously dumped in favor of the derisive Deshaun Watson.
Throughout the year, Mayfield outplayed Watson, and also cost a whopping $222 million less, and also took his team to the second round.
Silencing the doubters is a role Mayfield has had to play throughout his entire career since competing locally in the Lone Star State.
Putting up big numbers with Lake Travis (6,255 yards for 67 touchdowns, compiling a 25-2 overall record), Mayfield only lost two games in his starting tenure, as well as winning the 2011 4A State Championship. Despite the gaudy stats, Mayfield still fielded a lack of scholarships from Power Five schools. TCU pulled an offer. Texas Tech, the team he eventually chose, bogged him down with scholarship issues. There was also controversy on whether or not he could get a year of eligibility back after transferring to Oklahoma.
After falling off the roster with three NFL teams, Mayfield isn’t always pretty, but he does enough to win, especially with Tampa Bay’s solid personnel. When he becomes a free agent in March, teams searching for quarterbacks that once passed on him may exhaust up to $30 million a year on the six-year veteran. After he checks his bank account, Mayfield will surely have the last laugh.
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