Baker Mayfield is America's Quarterback
Nobody in the NFL is like him. "Bake" represents the sport at its purest, from talking shit to holding grudges to going full Favre in the fourth quarter. And, oh, what happened in Cleveland anyway?
TAMPA — Baker Mayfield will never forget the spring of 2022. All the whispers, the reports, the doubts. His football obituary was authored and published by all in the mainstream. Right here was another mouthy college star who couldn’t hack it in the NFL. One accusation topped them all. The Cleveland Browns, per ESPN, were seeking an “adult in the room.” Their counter was to gift $230 million guaranteed to a quarterback accused of abhorrent behavior on a massage table.
A lot has changed since then.
Exactly 100 touchdowns and 27 victories later as the quarterback of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Mayfield could easily let bygones be bygones. For most humans — let alone pro quarterbacks — harboring resentment is unhealthy. Of course, Mayfield is not like most quarterbacks.
The team’s assistant general manager, Rob McCartney, thinks back to when Browns sources leaked to multiple outlets that Mayfield was an immature brat.
“He keeps receipts,” says McCartney, smiling. “He’s got all those memorized.”
Execs. Coaches. Players. Janitors. Everyone here at Bucs HQ knows their leader, their life force is a snarling product of that offseason. Back when this league grabbed him by the collar and hurled him to the curb. No, he was never supposed to resurface as a franchise quarterback. The script dictated this antagonist retreat to a life as a clipboard-carrying backup for a few years, transition into TV and spend the next three or four decades wondering what could’ve been if, you know, he acted like a grown-up.
Yet, here’s Baker Mayfield in all his glory. He treats packed stadiums like his backyard.
Take the last three weeks.
Against the Buffalo Bills, on fourth and inches, he flips headfirst into the end zone for a touchdown and chucks a souvenir into the upper deck. Against the L.A. Rams, he suffers a sprained AC joint in his left shoulder. A blowout loss feels more like a dagger into the heart of this 2025 Buccaneers season. Especially with Mayfield reduced to a sling on the sideline through the second half. But he plays the next week against Arizona, because of course he plays the next week. One by one, he headbutts linemen during pregame and proceeds to resuscitate title aspirations with a gritty 20-17 win. On Drive No. 1, “Bake” shake ‘n bakes the hardest-hitting safety in league (Budda Baker) on third and 9 to hit Chris Godwin for 25. He throws one touchdown to his 6-foot-5, 320-pound drinking buddy (Tristan Wirfs) and then — after Bucky Irving slashes into the end zone for a TD — Mayfield races the running back’s direction to celebrate.
They smack hands repeatedly, emphatically wipe their faces and, yes, headbutt.
All in all, he resembles a man still out to stick it to doubters.
Because, well, that is 100 percent the case.
It’s Old School Week here at Go Long and Baker Reagan Mayfield from Austin, Texas is as old school as it gets at the most critical position in sports.
A grudge-holding, shit-talking, flame-throwing fascination who would’ve dusted off a Greg Lloyd blindside hit in the 90s and gotten into Dick Butkus’ face in the 60s.
The same intangibles that got Mayfield drafted No. 1 overall in the 2018 NFL Draft power his game today. GMs and scouts exhaust thousands of miles on the road hunting for these hidden traits… to no avail. There’s something special inside of this quarterback that cannot be explained by self-anointed film junkies and advanced analytics. The 6-foot-1, 215-pounder is all guts, all emotion. As this league washes itself in billions of gambling dollars and only gets more prim, more polished, more corporate, quarterbacks are understandably afraid of their own shadow.
It’s unwise to create enemies. Offend the wrong person and it may damage your brand.
This league needs Baker Mayfield because he represents the purity of the sport.
When a video of the QB lobbing obscenities at a Seahawks fan went viral, he put it perfect.
“Early on in my career it was ‘cocky, immature,’” Mayfield said. “Now it’s ‘moxie’ and ‘he’s a dog.’ Same shit. Different day. As long as you play well, they change the narrative, but you’ve just gotta be yourself, and I’ve always been like that.”
We all remember sitting in 11th grade U.S. History, watching that clock on the wall tick closer (and closer) toward Friday night lights. It’s raining so the poorly irrigated field promises to be a mud pit. The bell rings, eyes follow you in the hallway and — by roughly 5 p.m. — the redneck linebacker with Skoal in his back pocket blasts Rob Zombie’s “Dragula” on a dusty speaker in your crappy locker room. Nerves trigger a spell of cottonmouth. During pregame, you spot Mom and Dad in the bleachers, the ball is kicked and, soon enough, your coach finally calls for that “22 Jet Pass.”
An intoxicating rush that’s impossible to replicate the rest of your life.
Mayfield is a throwback to everything that got us hooked on football.
He’ll play through any injury. As ex-Browns fullback Andy Janovich eloquently says: “You could cut his dick off and he wouldn’t fucking say shit.”
He fights. He’s as close as the sport has to Brett Favre in a fourth quarter. That’s what struck one ex-Packers scout telling the Browns to select Mayfield No. 1.
He somehow gets the other 10 players in a huddle to perform at a completely different level. No quarterback can acquire such magnetism from a private quarterback coach. It’s innate, and it demands a borderline delusional supply of self-belief. At one point in 2022, Mayfield’s belief was tested. His NFL career was on the brink of total collapse. Tampa Bay’s No. 2 QB, Teddy Bridgewater, knows for certain that Mayfield is motivated by everything that unraveled in Cleveland and Carolina.
“When people count you out,” Bridgewater says, “that will motivate you. He plays the game like he loves it and that’s always No. 1. If you don’t love it, the game will get taken away from you and bad things happen.
“He’s proving a lot of people wrong and a lot of people right at the same time. He’s proving himself right. That’s what is most important.”
Our hunt for what’s inside America’s Quarterback begins with one football exec who saw it clear as day in 2018.
When virtually everyone else abandoned ship, this football lifer never stopped believing.
Inside this week’s feature…
What makes Baker Mayfield unlike any quarterback in the NFL?
Life was good in Cleveland… what happened? Was reconciliation possible?
Intangibles clashed with analytics. There’s a lesson for all owners and GMs to take here.
Sharp insight from Browns and Bucs teammates.
The time a raccoon named Henry made its way into the Browns facility.
All of the “Favre”-like qualities that live on in Mayfield, from bonding with the O-Linemen to playing through all injuries.
Tom Brady started one weekly habit in Tampa, and Mayfield kept it going. It’s his edge.
‘A crazy motherfucker’
It’s 8:30 p.m. on a Tuesday night.