Baker Mayfield Didn’t Get a New Deal & Now He Has a HUGE Chip on His Shoulder

The show does not usually play a two and a half minute sound bite. There was no edit point. Baker Mayfield opened his training camp press conference and never gave anyone a place to cut.

The setup was simple. Mayfield told the Buccaneers that if he did not have a new contract by the time he showed up for training camp, the conversation was over. He would play out his current deal and let them figure out the rest. Then he showed up, and he meant it.

"I wanted a deal done and set the deadline and told them it was going to be all ball after that, and I did mean that," Mayfield said. "I don't know if they thought I was just going to take some of the offers that they gave."

What followed was not a tantrum. It was an itemized accounting.

"I'm at the point of my career and understanding what I've brought to this franchise," Mayfield said. "I really know what I've brought to this franchise leadership-wise and even play-wise. It's been some of the best years of my career and I think it's only going to trend upwards."

He used the two words that matter in these situations. Disrespected. Undervalued.

"That's really the disappointing part, to feel undervalued after thinking you've earned it," he said, then immediately got in front of the obvious counterargument. "This is not a poor me thing. There's a lot other people that have it way worse off, but I can sit here and look at other quarterbacks and peers and evaluate myself based on that and put myself in certain categories that I deserve to be compensated for that."

Then the line that should be printed on something. "I think I'm a franchise quarterback. I've been told I'm a franchise quarterback. It's been said publicly from ownership down here."

Rich made the point that needs making about the optics here. Yes, this is a rich man's argument. Mayfield acknowledged that himself. But in the NFL, price tags are a measure of respect, and they always have been. There are quarterbacks who have not won divisions, have not won playoff games, and have not followed the greatest of all time in their own building who have signed for more than what Mayfield is probably even asking for. That should make him angry.

Mayfield also knows the mechanics well enough to close off the escape route. "Franchise tag isn't exactly in play for them," he said. "There'd be a lot of dead money."

The most telling moment was not about him. Mayfield spent part of his own contract press conference lobbying for a teammate, saying he hopes Vita Vea gets his back fixed and gets his deal done, calling him the anchor of the defense and the second longest tenured Buc behind CG.

And then he saved the flag plant for last. Asked why the deadline was so set in stone, Mayfield did not blink.

"If you've waited this long to take care of your franchise quarterback, that's too bad cuz it's only going to get worse from here. Yeah, I'm going to have a really good year."

That is a threat wearing a smile. It only gets worse for Tampa because every good week raises the number.

There is a version of this that ends the way it did for Joe Flacco, who was once told by Steve Bisciotti to go play it out, win the Super Bowl, and show up with a bag to be filled. Flacco won it. The bag got filled.

For Mayfield, the bar is clear. Win the division. Get a ticket to the tournament and go on a run. He has been a drive away from the final four in Detroit. He has done things that players with fatter contracts have not done.

Now he gets to prove it while annoyed, which by all available evidence is his preferred operating temperature.