American Football
Baker Mayfield's story: the remarkable rise, fall and rise again of an NFL MVP frontrunner
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At a time when narratives are king in the NFL, Baker Mayfield’s 2025 season is shaping up as one of the great comeback stories.
After beginning the year by guiding the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a 5-1 start and producing a gaudy 12:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio through Week 6, the former No. 1 overall pick finds himself squarely in the MVP conversation.
Observers point not just to counting stats, but to how he has done it – often playing through adversity, with injured weapons and under consistent pressure.
It’s a remarkable twist in the career of a player who once seemed headed for a “what might have been” tale - a story I share here.
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Mayfield entered the NFL in 2018 as the Cleveland Browns’ answer to a franchise searching for a long-term quarterback. The first overall pick arrived amid fanfare but stumbled badly in Years 1 and 2, as the Browns cycled coaches and protection schemes and Mayfield struggled with turnovers and inconsistency.
By 2020, though, everything clicked: in his third season, he marshalled a high-powered Browns offense, throwing effectively enough to show flashes of the draft pedigree. That season is still regarded widely as the high point of his Cleveland tenure.
Yet the momentum didn’t stick. In 2021, a shoulder injury derailed Mayfield’s trajectory. He lost his starting job, the Browns ultimately released him, and over the next two seasons, he bounced through stopgaps.
A stint with the Carolina Panthers, then a mid-season pick-up by the Los Angeles Rams, yielded only modest production and perpetuated the perception that he was a first-round bust.
Then, in Tampa Bay, Mayfield smelled opportunity. The Bucs inherited a quarterback whom many had disregarded, and they bet he still had fuel in the tank.
The gamble paid off. In 2024, Mayfield posted career highs across the board: 4,500 passing yards, 41 touchdowns, and a quarterback rating of 106.8.
That season also earned him a ranking – No. 50 – on the NFL’s 2025 Top 100 list, signalling peer recognition after years in the wilderness. Under his leadership, Tampa Bay went 10-7 and secured a postseason berth.
But that was just the opening act. In 2025, Mayfield has started the 2025 season fast. Through six games, he’s thrown for 1,539 yards, 12 touchdowns, and just one interception, ranking among league leaders in efficiency and turnover suppression.
The Bucs occupy first place in the NFC South, and Mayfield’s poise in late-game situations – culminating in multiple fourth-quarter comebacks – has elevated his MVP candidacy beyond box-score stat padding.
That he’s achieved this while key pass-catchers and even parts of the offensive line battle injuries only deepens the narrative.
What makes Mayfield’s story compelling is not just the numbers, but the transformation. The same quarterback once labelled a bust has retooled his decision-making, embraced risk mitigation, and found a system that plays to his strengths. His reputation has shifted: from disappointing top pick to redemption character to MVP contender.
If the season ends with Mayfield in the MVP conversation, it will stand as one of the more dramatic turnarounds in recent NFL memory. The story of a once-faltering career transformed into a late-blooming veteran's treasure trove of possibility.
In Tampa Bay, Baker Mayfield doesn’t merely look redeemed. He looks like the best version of himself yet.
