The clock keeps ticking for the Buccaneers and Baker Mayfield.
The Bucs are reportedly in “no rush” to extend Mayfield’s contract, which expires after the 2026 season. Mayfield has imposed a deadline for getting something done before the start of training camp.
The Buccaneers report for camp on July 28, only 19 days from now.
The problem seems to be simple to identify, anything but simple to solve. The market for veteran starting quarterbacks currently has a range of more than $40 million per year, from the low 20s to the mid 60s. Where does Mayfield land in that landscape?
While he’ll reportedly be getting $40 million this year (due to money that carried over from 2025), the APY remains $33.33 million. And the cash due this year under his contract is $27 million, with up to $5 million in incentives.
As we hear it, the Buccaneers believe they’ll offer Mayfield more than any other team would put on the table. They likely also believe that, when they move to their bottom-line position (probably just before July 28), Mayfield will take it.
And maybe he will. Sometimes, the bird in the hand — while not as big as Baker may like — is too large to let fly away. Especially since he’ll be carrying the risk of injury and sudden ineffectiveness through all 17 games of the 2026 season.
Mayfield, however, seems to be wired a little differently. He’s stubborn, in what some would say is a good way. He may stand on principle with this one, based on the fact that other quarterbacks with equal or lesser skills and abilities have cracked the $50 million APY threshold.
The Buccaneers may welcome this approach, confident that, whatever he does this season, they’ll still offer more than any other team.
That’s what happened after 2023, his first year in Tampa. Mayfield’s one-year deal expired, the Buccaneers didn’t use the franchise tag for 2024, and no one else made a serious play for his services. (Even though multiple teams should have.)
This time, the franchise tag (based on a 2026 cap number of $39.975 million), would be at least $47.97 million. If the Bucs win the Super Bowl or Mayfield becomes an MVP finalist, they’d be able to tag him for 2027.
But if Mayfield has a good-not-great year, and if the Bucs play it out with the same belief that they’ll offer him more than anyone else, here’s where Mayfield’s moxie can become a problem for the Bucs: he could take less from another team, just to prove a point.
And the one team that should be ready to make a move is the Steelers, where Mayfield’s mentality (and history with the Browns) would resonate with the fanbase in a big way.
If Mayfield goes, the Bucs would go back to the drawing board at quarterback. The other options currently on the roster are Jalon Daniels, Jake Browning, and Connor Bazelak.
So while it seems the Buccaneers have a plan, they need to account for the possibility that, if they make Mayfield play out the last year of his deal and don’t tag him, he could go elsewhere for less money — just to prove a point. And, based on the potential zeal with which he’s recruited, to embrace a team that truly wants him instead of a team that he may regard as being ambivalent about keeping him around.
Steelers Clips
The NFL is making a significant change to the offseason calendar for the 2027 season.
Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that the free agent negotiating window will open on March 9 next year. That is the same date that the two-day window opened this year, but the change comes in how close it will be to the end of the Scouting Combine.
NFL teams will wrap up their examinations and interrogations of incoming prospects on March 8 in 2027, which moves the league away from having a week or so between the two events as they have in past years.
Under that setup, the Combine has always been rife with table-setting for free agency as agents and team executives are all in the same place with their minds on the same things. With that gap eliminated, there will likely be even more of that work being done in Indianapolis so that teams are ready to make moves right from the starting gun.
Former NFL safety Myron Rolle went to medical school after he completed his playing career and the pediatric neurosurgeon is now coming back to work with the NFL Players Association.
The NFLPA announced that Rolle will be joining the union as a strategic advisor. Rolle’s work will focus on player health, brain cognition, and preventative care for active players.
“This sport gave my family joy, discipline, and community,” Rolle said in a statement. “To return now, as a physician, researcher and former player, and contribute to the wellbeing of the men who make this game what it is, feels deeply meaningful. I am honored to support the NFLPA’s mission and help advance a future where every player’s health is protected with the highest standard of care.”
Rolle was named a Rhodes Scholar while playing at Florida State and the Titans drafted him in the sixth round in 2010. He also spent time with the Steelers, but did not play in any regular season games before going back to Florida State for medical school in 2013.
Aaron Rodgers and Mike McCarthy are in their first year together in Pittsburgh, but after 13 years together in Green Bay, they know each other as well as any quarterback and head coach in the NFL.
Rodgers says he knows exactly what he needs to do in the McCarthy system, and it’s all about him having his timing down with his teammates.
“It’s just the next generations of the West Coast offense,” Rodgers said, via TribLive.com. “It went kind of Bill Walsh to kind of what Mike was doing with Paul Hackett, and then it’s kind of grown from there. From a real fundamental level, it’s all about the quarterback’s timing.”
Rodgers said McCarthy has changed some of the terminology in his offense since the two were last together on the 2018 Packers, but the system is fundamentally the same.
“I spent 13 years in [McCarthy’s offense],” Rodgers said. “He’s changed some stuff when he was in Dallas. . . . It’s stuff that we used to run, but he’s just called it something different now.”
In three months, McCarthy will hope to see Rodgers running that offense the same way he did in Green Bay.
Not all grass field are the same.
While NFL players overwhelmingly prefer grass to artificial turf, they want high-quality grass. At Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh, the grass has not been high-quality.
While it’s come a long way from the Punt That Didn’t Bounce Of 2007, last year’s surface was an embarrassment for the Steelers and the league. (It doesn’t help that Pitt plays there, too, and that on multiple weekends the field had Saturday and Sunday games.)
Via Jack Markowski of SI.com, a new surface has been installed at Acrisure Stadium. Precision Turf announced on Wednesday that the installation of Tahoma 31 Bermudagrass has been completed.
Earlier this year, Steelers owner Art Rooney II acknowledged that the grass field, which drew an F-minus in the annual NFLPA report cards, would be replaced. He also left the door open to a potential switch to artificial turf, if the new version doesn’t perform as intended.
The players would hate that. But they’d hate it less than another bad grass surface in Pittsburgh.
Drew Allar has some familiarity with the West Coast offense, but the Steelers rookie quarterback doesn’t know nearly as much about Mike McCarthy’s offense as Aaron Rodgers.
Rodgers played for McCarthy in Green Bay from 2006-18.
Allar will get at least one season to watch and learn from Rodgers and McCarthy, who has also had Joe Montana, Brett Favre and Dak Prescott as his quarterback.
“I’m really excited to learn from [Rodgers],” Allar told Eric Williams of Fox Sports. “With him being in coach McCarthy’s system in Green Bay, it’s beneficial because he knows the system inside and out, even though he hasn’t played in it in five or six years at this point. And just everything he’s going through in his career, playing in tens of thousands of snaps, how much experience and knowledge he has — the nuances of playing the position of quarterback, reading coverages, the defensive tendencies — any little thing I can pick up to help me process faster and be more accurate, I’m all in for it.”
Allar, a third-round pick, is fourth on the depth chart behind Rodgers, Mason Rudolph and Will Howard.
“It’s really just taking it a day at a time,” Allar told Williams. “They do a great job of building it out throughout practice with the quarterback in individual drills. They do a great job of emphasizing things throughout each day, just so I can get that foundation, because the footwork is a little different than what I’m used to.
“We were under center a little bit at Penn State, but not in the drop-back game. It was more run game and play-action game. So, just getting cleaner with under-center drops and drop-back footwork. And just really trying to pick up on the nuances of it. Just some different teaching, and it’s really cool to be a part of that. And kind of have another chapter to learn from and grow from. I already feel a lot more comfortable in it, and I know I’ve just got to keep my head down and keep working at it.”
The Steelers have made an addition to their coaching staff.
Multiple outlets noted that the Steelers have added Darian Thompson to the list of coaches on their website. Thompson is listed as a special teams quality control assistant.
The move comes after the team fired senior special teams assistant Derius Swinton last month. That move was reportedly made due to workplace misconduct.
Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy had Thompson on his Cowboys staff as an assistant linebackers coach in 2023 and 2024. He remained on Brian Schottenheimer’s staff last year, but was not retained after the team hired Christian Parker as their defensive coordinator. Thompson also played safety in the league and was on the Cowboys’ roster during McCarthy’s first two years as their head coach.
The Steelers signed defensive back Ahmari Harvey, the team announced Thursday.
Harvey originally signed with the Broncos as an undrafted free agent following the 2026 draft.
He played four seasons at Georgia Tech after transferring from Auburn (2021). While with the Yellow Jackets, he appeared in 43 games and recorded 121 tackles, including 98 solo stops.
He also added 12 passes defensed, four interceptions, two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries and one sack.
In a corresponding move, the team released defensive end K.J. Henry.
Steelers cornerback Joey Porter Jr. wants a long-term extension. He may or may not get one.
Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette questioned whether the team and Porter will come to an agreement.
“They haven’t soured on the idea, but I don’t think they’re prepared to pay him the amount some people think he is worth,” Dulac wrote.
Porter did limited work in the offseason program, and he could continue with a hold-in during training camp.
Rams cornerback Trent McDuffie leads all players at his position with an annual salary of $31 million. Indianapolis’ Sauce Gardner and Houston’s Derek Stingley Jr. are at $30 million a season.
Seattle’s Devon Witherspoon and New England’s Christian Gonzalez soon could sign deals with similar annual averages.
Porter, who turns 26 later this week, has never earned Pro Bowl or All-Pro honors. He has three interceptions and 31 pass breakups in 47 career games.
Aaron Rodgers is planning for the 2026 season to be his final one as an NFL player, but the Steelers could continue to benefit from his experience after he officially hangs up the cleats.
The Steelers drafted wide receiver Germie Bernard in the second round of this year’s draft and the rookie said at his youth football camp that the quarterback has taken him under his wing since Rodgers decided to return to Pittsburgh.
“Coming in as a rookie and him being an NFL vet, man, he’s just teaching me the game,” Bernard said, via Fox54 in Huntsville, Alabama. “He’s helping me catch up because he thinks I have the potential to play. He’s just pouring into me as much as he can. I just ask questions and I try to learn, be a sponge as much as I can. Receive what they’re telling me because they know the best, they’ve been played the game for a long time.”
Learning from a quarterback like Rodgers should benefit Bernard’s transition to the professional ranks and the rookie’s presence could help Rodgers go out with a strong season. Adding Bernard and Michael Pittman Jr. to DK Metcalf gives the Steelers more offensive firepower than they had last season and provides reason to think the quarterback’s last stand can be a more successful one.
