Baker Mayfield’s slide in FanSided’s quarterback rankings is a pretty clean snapshot of where things stand for the Buccaneers right now: the shine is off, and the mistakes are piling up.
When the 2026 season began, Mayfield was viewed as a high-end franchise quarterback, just outside the NFL’s elite class. FanSided’s preseason panel of 50 experts backed that up, slotting him 14th overall and placing him in the “Strong QB1” tier.
That picture looks a lot different now. In FanSided’s midseason rankings, Mayfield dropped to No. 19, a five-spot fall that pushed him out of “Strong QB1” territory and into the “Solid Starter” group. Among starting quarterbacks, only Justin Herbert, Kyler Murray, and Daniel Jones took a bigger tumble.
He’s also been overtaken by C.J. Stroud, Jalen Hurts, Bryce Young, and Sam Darnold.
The drop makes sense given how rough this season has been for Mayfield. Through six games, he has more turnovers than touchdowns, with three touchdown passes and four interceptions.
He’s added a rushing touchdown, but he’s also lost three fumbles. For a Buccaneers team with real championship potential on paper, that’s a brutal place for the quarterback to be.
Tampa Bay has a lot going for it elsewhere. The Buccaneers own the NFL’s No. 3 total defense and the No. 1 run defense run.
They also have the league’s best rushing offense behind a dominant offensive line. And yet they sit at just 3-6, with quarterback play doing the most damage.
Mayfield has already cost Tampa Bay two games outright.
In Week 1 against the Bengals, he lost three fumbles, and Cincinnati turned those mistakes into 17 points in a 33-27 Buccaneers loss. Then on Sunday Night Football in Week 9, Tampa Bay pushed the Super Bowl-contending Chicago Bears to the brink behind a defense that forced five turnovers and mostly bottled up Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams’ offense. But Mayfield gave it back with two turnovers of his own, including a backbreaking pick-six.
The strange part is that Tampa Bay’s best results have come when Mayfield barely has to throw. In his two wins as a starter this season, he has attempted just 14 passes combined.
In one of those games, he didn’t complete a single pass. That’s not exactly the kind of stat line that screams stability from a franchise quarterback.
As FanSided’s Buccaneers representative on the panel, I contributed my own perspective on Mayfield, and my assessment wasn’t all sunshines and rainbows, either:
“The Baker Mayfield experience is a roller coaster. He’s been wildly inconsistent during his Bucs career, looking like an MVP-level quarterback at times while also having stretches where he’s one of the worst starting quarterbacks in the NFL.
You live by the sword, you die by the sword, and Mayfield’s fearless gunslinger mentality is what makes him so special when things are clicking. But when that aggressiveness gets the better of him, he can become a reckless decision-maker who puts his team in difficult situations, raising legitimate questions about whether Tampa Bay can consistently rely on him as its franchise quarterback.”
That inconsistency has become the defining issue. The Buccaneers are 4-11 in Mayfield’s last 15 starts dating back to last season, and the three-year, $165 million extension he signed in the offseason is already looking shaky.
For now, the ranking drop is justified by the tape and the numbers. If Mayfield wants to stop sliding, he has to start looking like a franchise quarterback again - and do it consistently. Otherwise, the Buccaneers’ search for the next answer under center may come sooner than anyone expected.
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