Player
Baker Mayfield
QB · TB Buccaneers
Accuracy over expectation is supposed to be a passer's signature, the number that follows him from team to team. Mayfield's has swung between plus 3.60 and minus 7.02 across eight seasons, which means it is not telling you about him so much as about the offense he is standing in. That makes his fantasy projection a read on scheme and target quality rather than on a stable skill, and it is the single biggest reason to distrust extrapolating either the 2024 or the 2025 version.
The 41 that could not repeat
2024 was the year he threw short and hit everything. 2025 he went back downfield and stopped hitting.
TrendBaker Mayfield by season, charted passes (regular season)
| Season | Team | Charted attempts | Average throw depth | Completions above expected | EPA per charted pass |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | CLE | 486 | 9.29 | +1.32 | +0.150 |
| 2019 | CLE | 534 | 8.47 | -2.96 | +0.091 |
| 2020 | CLE | 485 | 8.53 | +2.80 | +0.262 |
| 2021 | CLE | 418 | 8.75 | -2.72 | +0.153 |
| 2022 | CAR and LA | 335 | 6.79 | -7.02 | +0.016 |
| 2023 | TB | 566 | 8.56 | +0.24 | +0.185 |
| 2024 | TB | 570 | 6.97 | +3.60 | +0.308 |
| 2025 | TB | 543 | 8.11 | -2.12 | +0.109 |
The 2024 season stands alone in his career on both axes: the shallowest average throw of his eight years at 6.97 air yards, and by a wide margin the most accurate at plus 3.60 completions above expectation. In 2025 Tampa Bay pushed the ball back downfield, to 8.11, and his accuracy fell to minus 2.12, a swing of nearly six points in one offseason. His EPA per throw went from +0.308, a top-of-the-league figure, to +0.109.
Why it matters. Accuracy over expectation is supposed to be a passer's signature, the number that follows him from team to team. Mayfield's has swung between plus 3.60 and minus 7.02 across eight seasons, which means it is not telling you about him so much as about the offense he is standing in. That makes his fantasy projection a read on scheme and target quality rather than on a stable skill, and it is the single biggest reason to distrust extrapolating either the 2024 or the 2025 version.
The two receivers who built his 41-touchdown season played 17 games between them in 2025. A rookie led the team in targets.
AnomalyTampa Bay receiving, 2025 regular season
| Player | Games | Targets | Catches | Yards | TDs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emeka Egbuka | 17 | 127 | 63 | 938 | 6 |
| Cade Otton | 15 | 81 | 59 | 572 | 1 |
| Mike Evans | 8 | 62 | 30 | 368 | 3 |
| Sterling Shepard | 13 | 53 | 39 | 371 | 1 |
| Chris Godwin Jr. | 9 | 51 | 33 | 360 | 2 |
| Rachaad White | 17 | 45 | 40 | 218 | 0 |
| Tez Johnson | 15 | 44 | 28 | 322 | 5 |
| Bucky Irving | 10 | 35 | 30 | 277 | 3 |
In 2023 Mike Evans and Chris Godwin played 34 games between them and combined for 266 targets, 2,279 yards and 15 touchdowns. In 2025 they played 17 games between them and combined for 113 targets and 728 yards. Tampa Bay's leading receiver was a rookie taken 19th overall, and its second-leading target was a tight end. The offense still cleared 20 points in 13 of 17 games, which is what a functioning quarterback looks like on a broken depth chart.
Why it matters. Weighing a quarterback's decline requires separating him from his receiving corps, and the 2025 Buccaneers make that unusually easy: the two players who caught 16 of his 41 touchdowns the year before were unavailable for most of it. That the offense stayed above the 20-point line in 13 games while turning over its entire target hierarchy is the strongest argument that 2025 was an environment year, not an aging year.
What he still does better than almost anyone
Inside the 5-yard line he throws a touchdown 47% of the time. Every other quarterback in football sits at 36%.
ComparisonPass TD rate from inside the 5, 2023-2025 regular season (30+ attempts)
| Quarterback | Attempts | TDs | TD rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jalen Hurts | 38 | 20 | 52.6% |
| Baker Mayfield | 66 | 31 | 47.0% |
| Jordan Love | 43 | 20 | 46.5% |
| Matthew Stafford | 78 | 34 | 43.6% |
| Kyler Murray | 35 | 15 | 42.9% |
| Patrick Mahomes | 70 | 30 | 42.9% |
| Brock Purdy | 52 | 22 | 42.3% |
| All other QBs pooled | 1824 | 661 | 36.2% |
Across his three Tampa Bay seasons Mayfield has thrown 66 passes from inside the opponent 5 and produced 31 touchdowns, a 47.0% rate. Only Jalen Hurts is higher, on nearly half the volume. Pooled across everyone else in the same window the rate is 36.2%. This is the part of his game that did not move when the 2024 touchdown total collapsed: the shrinking field is where he has been consistently excellent for three years.
Why it matters. Goal-line passing is where a quarterback's touchdown total is actually manufactured, and it is one of the few situational splits with enough repetition across three seasons to mean something. A quarterback ten points above the field inside the 5 converts his team's red-zone trips into more fantasy points than his yardage would predict, which is exactly how a 3,693-yard passer finished 12th at the position. The volume is the risk, not the finishing.
The 41-touchdown season is the second-biggest in Buccaneers history. The only one bigger belongs to Tom Brady.
MilestoneMost passing TDs in a Buccaneers season, 1999-2025
| Quarterback | Season | Pass TDs | Pass yards |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tom Brady | 2021 | 43 | 5316 |
| Baker Mayfield | 2024 | 41 | 4500 |
| Tom Brady | 2020 | 40 | 4633 |
| Jameis Winston | 2019 | 33 | 5109 |
| Jameis Winston | 2016 | 28 | 4090 |
| Baker Mayfield | 2023 | 28 | 4044 |
| Josh Freeman | 2012 | 27 | 4065 |
| Brad Johnson | 2003 | 26 | 3821 |
Only three seasons in the 27 years of Tampa Bay football the record covers have reached 40 passing touchdowns, and two of them belong to Tom Brady. Mayfield's 41 in 2024 sits between them, two behind Brady's 43 and one ahead of his 40, on 816 fewer yards than the 2021 season he trails. He owns two of the franchise's top six touchdown years, and he arrived in Tampa Bay having been released by two teams in the same season.
Why it matters. The franchise context is a reminder of how unlikely the whole Tampa Bay chapter is. A quarterback who was the first pick of a draft, then a salary dump, then a midseason waiver claim, is now second on the touchdown list of a team that employed a seven-time champion. It also frames the 2025 season correctly: 26 touchdowns is a normal starting quarterback year, and the thing it is being measured against was the second-best passing season in franchise history.
The QB12 at pick 130
382 rushing yards, eighth-most of any starting quarterback, and exactly one touchdown to show for it.
Anomaly2025 QB rushing yards, top 10 among passers with 300+ attempts
| Quarterback | Rush yards | Rush TDs | Total PPR points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Josh Allen | 579 | 14 | 364.6 |
| Justin Herbert | 498 | 2 | 286.9 |
| Jaxson Dart | 487 | 9 | 241.6 |
| Drake Maye | 450 | 4 | 352.0 |
| Patrick Mahomes | 422 | 5 | 285.7 |
| Jalen Hurts | 421 | 8 | 301.1 |
| Caleb Williams | 388 | 3 | 318.7 |
| Baker Mayfield | 382 | 1 | 271.9 |
| Trevor Lawrence | 359 | 9 | 338.2 |
| Bo Nix | 356 | 5 | 304.8 |
Mayfield ran for 382 yards, more than Trevor Lawrence or Bo Nix, and scored one rushing touchdown doing it. Every other quarterback in the top ten found the end zone at least twice, and the median of the group is five. He had scored three on almost identical volume in 2024. Four rushing touchdowns are worth roughly 24 fantasy points, which is most of the 25-point gap between finishing 12th at the position and finishing 9th.
Why it matters. Rushing touchdowns for a quarterback with a real carry floor carry moderate persistence year to year, which means one is not a new normal for a passer who scored three the season before and six across his previous four. The specific mechanism to watch is goal-line usage: he already converts throws inside the 5 better than almost anyone, so a coaching staff that keeps calling passes there is trading his best skill against his cheapest points. Either way this is a soft number with room to move up.
What happens next: back inside the top 12. Seven of the last nine quarterbacks who crashed like this did it the very next year.
The season after a 14+ touchdown crash, 1999-2024
| Outcome the following season | Count | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Crash seasons in the cohort | 11 | |
| Finished top 12 at QB the next year | 7 of 11 | 64% |
| Never played another qualifying season | 2 of 11 | 18% |
| Average PPR points the next year | 282.3 | |
| Best rebound | Matt Ryan, 2018 | 355.0 points, QB2 |
| Worst rebound | Peyton Manning, 2015 | 91.4 points, QB34 |
Eleven quarterbacks lost 14 or more passing touchdowns in a season since 1999 while throwing 450 passes in both years. The year after, they averaged 282.3 PPR points, ten more than Mayfield scored during his crash, and seven of eleven finished inside the top 12. The two who never played another qualifying season were both at the very end of long careers. Mayfield turns 31 in April with three straight 17-game seasons behind him. The call: Mayfield finishes the 2026 regular season inside the top 12 fantasy quarterbacks. Grade it on final 2026 PPR scoring at the position.
Why it matters. The base rate is doing most of the work, and it is a genuinely favorable one because a touchdown crash is usually regression from an outlier rather than the start of a decline. The specific support underneath it is that he already finished 12th during the crash year, so the claim only requires him to hold, not to improve, and two of the inputs that hurt him look temporary: a receiving room that lost 17 games of Evans and Godwin, and a single rushing touchdown on 382 yards. The failure mode is a third straight offseason of a rebuilt target group.
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