Baker Mayfield and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have gotten off to a strong start to the 2024 NFL season, winning their first two games vs the Washington Commanders and the Detroit Lions. Mayfield continues to look like a legitimate starting quarterback in the first year of his new contract extension, and Tampa Bay looks poised to once again compete for the NFC South crown.
Of course, it was a long road for Mayfield to get to this point since he was drafted number one overall in 2018, particularly during his stint with the Cleveland Browns, with whom he was never quite able to get things going.
Mayfield has made no secret of the fact that he believes he was slighted by the Browns when they ultimately opted to trade him, and recently, he doubled down on those thoughts, via Casa De Klub.
“I’ve said this before and it’s not to beat a dead horse but you know I felt like I was treated like a piece of dirty laundry and that’s just a matter of fact.,” said Mayfield.” Like the things I was told about when you get healthy, you’ll be back to that 2020 form. I thought I fought and showed enough prior to that to be able to get the opportunity for year 5 but it went other ways.”
However, Mayfield made sure to put things in perspective, noting that he wouldn't be where he is today without that experience.
“Am I mad about it? At the time I was furious. Now, no everything happens for a reason and you just got to trust in that.”
A redemption story
The Browns would be forgiven for not projecting that Mayfield would one day turn into the quarterback he is now given what he showed them during his limited time with the franchise.
While he did deal with injuries as he noted above, Mayfield was quite erratic and showed little command of the game during his time with Cleveland, a trend which carried over into his future stints with various teams around the league.
However, since joining the Buccaneers, Mayfield has seemed to be able to shake most of the bad habits that defined the early portion of his career and hold onto the dynamic qualities that allowed him to be the number one overall pick to begin with.
In any case, the Buccaneers will next take the field on Sunday at home vs the Denver Broncos.
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