QB Baker Mayfield was a bust with Carolina Panthers. Why is he thriving in Tampa Bay?

For the Carolina Panthers, “The Baker Mayfield Project” was an abject failure.

Mayfield won the starting job over Sam Darnold in the Panthers’ 2022 training camp, only to flounder in the regular season. He went 1-5 as a starter in Carolina. He got benched. His miserable performance helped get coach Matt Rhule fired after five games in 2022. Mayfield started all five of those games, playing poorly in almost all of them. Only five months after the Panthers traded a fifth-round pick to get him, they demoted him to third string and soon afterward released him at Mayfield’s request.

And yet here Mayfield is — the starting quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, one of eight teams remaining in the NFL posteason. In a first-round playoff game against Philadelphia on Monday night, Mayfield threw for 337 yards and three touchdowns in a 32-9 rout. He is thriving in Tampa Bay, only a year after failing in Carolina.

Why?

To find out, I’ve gone back through Mayfield’s brief time here, perusing game footage and talking to some close observers in and around the team.

‘We didn’t play to Baker’s strengths’

One Panthers player on the 2022 squad, who didn’t want to be named so he could speak freely, said: “I would say we didn’t play to Baker’s strengths. I always felt like his best year in Cleveland, there was a lot of rollout and getting Baker on the move. Shifts. Motions. Movement. I always felt like we were fairly stagnant (during Mayfield’s time running the offense), and Baker stayed in the pocket.”

Jake Delhomme, the lone quarterback in the Panthers’ hall of honor, is now the team’s radio analyst. In a phone interview Wednesday, the first thing Delhomme said about Mayfield 2023 vs. Mayfield 2022 was this: “Listen he has a Hall of Fame receiver in Mike Evans, who’s really, really good.”

And that’s true. Delhomme had Steve Smith when the sledding got tough. Mayfield now has Evans.

But at the beginning of 2022, Mayfield also had Christian McCaffrey in the backfield and DJ Moore at wide receiver. Those two, like Mayfield, have gone on to have career years in other places in 2023 once they got away from Charlotte (a common theme of the past five years, and maybe it’s worth pointing out once again here that Carolina’s mascot is a black cat).

Still, in 2022, Mayfield’s weaponry was far more sophisticated than what poor Bryce Young had to work with this season.

Young was set up to fail in terms of personnel, which is part of the reason former general manager Scott Fitterer just got fired.

Mayfield had much better personnel. The coaching, however, was questionable, as was Mayfield’s performance. It was ugly, week after week. His feet got choppy. Although his offensive line performed better than Young’s did, when it did break down, he got a little panicky. He got a lot of balls batted down.

Mayfield’s final stats for Carolina in 2022 before he got released: six touchdowns and six interceptions. By contrast, in 2023, Mayfield threw 31 TD passes against 10 interceptions for Tampa Bay, including last week’s playoff game.

‘He’s playing with confidence’

The former Heisman Trophy winner rarely, if ever, showed the swagger he was famous for, in large part because his confidence seemed so shaken while playing for Rhule and then-offensive coordinator Ben McAdoo. Shortly before the end in Charlotte, Mayfield was such an afterthought that he was occasionally lining up as a scout team defensive lineman for walk-through repetitions to help the team.

“He’s playing with confidence now,” Delhomme said of Mayfield. “He truly has the Joe Flacco mentality now, which is like, ‘I don’t care. I’m just going out there to play. I’m going to throw the football and let it fly.’”

Tampa Bay also has a superb No. 2 receiver in Chris Godwin and a running back in Rachaad White who is solid. Perhaps just as important, offensive coordinator Dave Canales has been very good for Mayfield, Delhomme and others noted.

“Canales is a name to watch,” said Delhomme, noting that as Seattle’s QB coach in 2022 that Canales had guided Geno Smith to a breakout season.

“Canales is a Pete Carroll disciple,” Delhomme added, “and everything is about competition and positivity. I think he brought that to Baker.”

The Panthers, by the way, requested an interview with Canales for their head-coaching job — one of a number of candidates they are considering. That interview, a source told The Observer, was taking place Thursday.

While Mayfield didn’t work out in Carolina — the Panthers under interim head coach Steve Wilks eventually demoted him behind both Sam Darnold and PJ Walker — he immediately showed he could still play once he left the Panthers.

Picked up on a Tuesday by a Los Angeles Rams team that had sustained injuries at quarterback, Mayfield played only two days later and led a game-winning drive. That didn’t last, however, as Mayfield went 1-3 as starter for the Rams.

Plus, the Rams have Matthew Stafford (a QB the Panthers tried hard to trade for once upon a time), and so Mayfield was a free agent this offseason. The Bucs had to replace Tom Brady, who finally was retiring after approximately 57 years as an NFL quarterback, and so they turned to Mayfield in 2023 on a one-year, $4-million deal — a big-time bargain by NFL standards. Mayfield beat the Panthers twice this season although he didn’t look particularly good doing so, especially in an all-field-goal, 9-0 win on Jan. 7, the final day of the regular season.

Mayfield’s future prospects

Mayfield will command a lot more money in the coming offseason, from Tampa Bay or someone else.

It won’t be the Panthers, of course. They’ve hitched their wagon to Young now, and already have Andy Dalton signed to be the backup in 2024. Mayfield has blossomed elsewhere, just like so many former Panthers.

Tampa Bay plays at Detroit at 3 p.m. on Sunday. The game pits two offensive coordinators who the Panthers have requested a head-coaching interview with — not only Canales, but also Detroit’s Ben Johnson.

“I kind of think Baker and Tampa Bay are facing a buzzsaw in Detroit,” Delhomme said. “I think it could be the end of the road for Tampa.”

But, as we all know, Mayfield has surprised people before — for better in Tampa, for worse in Carolina.