What if Baker Mayfield rejects the Bucs? 4 alternative options

Tampa Bay must be prepared for its worst-case scenario.

At Friday’s news conference at the AdventHealth Training Center, Mike Evans and Jason Licht sat all smiles in front of the media as the former discussed his 2-year extension he officially inked to remain with the Bucs.

The franchise legend spanned the gamut on topics, but one particular point of interest was his viewpoint on quarterback Baker Mayfield. Mayfield, who set career highs in his first season with the Buccaneers in 2023, is a free agent and will be available to sign with any team come Monday when the legal tampering period opens.

The long-held sentiment has been that the 28-year-old signal caller will value consistency as he comes off the previous calendar year that saw him spend time with 4 different franchises. Public negotiation tactics are in full force, but Evans expressed confidence in Baker’s return.

“I’m extremely confident (about Mayfield’s return),” said Evans. “I’m not 100 percent, but he played really great for us last year. The city took him in, the players loved him. Hopefully, we get him back, but he should do what’s best for him.”

But, with all that said, what if Mayfield determines what’s best for him is, in fact, somewhere else? There have been reports that the Atlanta Falcons and New England Patriots will be just a couple teams that will express serious interest. If either decide to price Tampa out of the market, how far with the Bucs go to meet demand?

While chances seem slim that the Baker ship could sink, teams need to be prepared for the twists and turns of roster construction. Players are human beings after all, and their emotions aren’t as simple as clicking some buttons in a game of Madden. Licht himself espoused the merits of preparedness.

“You always have to, as Bruce (Arians) would say, look behind Door 2, 3 and 4 and 5,” Licht said. “We always feel like we need options.”

So what are said options? Let’s postulate.

Door No. 2 — Russell Wilson

Quiet frankly, the Bucs are not going to settle for a rookie QB or Kyle Trask as their secondary choice to quarterback this team in 2024. They’re going to seek out, at the least, a proven veteran option who allows the club to remain competitive in a very winnable division.

Kirk Cousins may be vaguely on the radar, but that seems hard to believe when he’s almost 36 years old, possibly more expensive than Mayfield, and coming off a torn Achilles. Ergo, the recently released Wilson might prove to be smarter.

Wilson is no longer the elite Seattle version, he comes with his personality quirks, and he’s the same age as Cousins, but Wilson did still throw for 26 touchdowns to just 8 interceptions with excellent red-zone efficiency in only 15 games. He was surrounded by a notably worse roster as well, so I wouldn’t be so quick to douse the embers on Wilson’s career if he ends up in Tampa.

The biggest factor of all in this will be Wilson’s salary, which will be well below market value due to the Bronco’s still owing him what feels like a tiny country’s GDP. The Bucs would also easily be the most appealing environment out of other rumored destinations like the Las Vegas Raiders, New York Giants, and Pittsburgh Steelers.

Door No. 3 — Jacoby Brissett

The veteran pathways don’t stop at Wilson, though there isn’t quite the higher-upside lottery ticket like Mayfield this year. If Tampa were to miss out on Mayfield and Wilson, they could pivot to a stop-gap like Gardner Minshew or Brissett.

Brissett spent most of last year backing up Sam Howell with the Washington Commanders. Though they intended for the young gun to take his lumps, his struggles eventually forced Brissett into action, as he looked sharp in 3 total games of action (zero starts). Brissett has consistently been serviceable throughout his career, and Tampa would present the strongest supporting cast he’s ever worked with.

A one-year deal would again be affordable, though the team might be more motivated to search out a true QB of the future via the draft…

Door No. 4 — Go All in with a Rookie

If they miss out on the top 2 or 3 veteran options, going in on a rookie signal caller seems a fair alternative to assume. It certainly would fall on an accelerated timeline compared to what the front office expected, but they did reportedly meet with several QB prospects at the Scouting Combine — including Tampa’s own Michael Penix, Jr., who is also a Bruce Arians favorite.

While it’s very unlikely a massive jump up in the draft order would be in the cards, the team trading back out of the first or trading up in the second could yield a QB option they covet at a fair value. Names like Penix and Oregon’s Bo Nix would constitute to best plays on early Day 2 of the NFL Draft.

Even with this course of action, a lower-tier veteran still seems like a good bet to push any rookie.

Door No. 5 — Kyle Trask

Tampa’s decision-makers know how they feel about Trask at this point. If they felt any serious feelings about Trask’s starting potential, they would’ve just given him his run last year.

Photo by Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images

We don’t even really know what Trask is as a pro, but the team has seen him practice everyday for 3 years so they’ve got some idea. Sure, they gave him a thinly veiled shot at surprising everyone in training camp with a “competition” against Mayfield, but basically everyone knew that Baker’s job to lose…and he would’ve needed to be truly putrid to lose it.

This would signal complete desperation — everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

Door No.5s exist for every team at every position, but any good GM worth his salt doesn’t allow himself to venture into that wing of the house. We’re talking hallway with the ghost twins in “The Shining” levels of avoidance here, folks.

Could Trask be QB1 for the Bucs? Yea. Will he? I’d place a sizable wager on that being an emphatic “no.”

Any thoughts on this nightmare, Bucs Nation? Vote in the poll and comment below.