Defensive tackle Vita Vea remains off the field at Buccaneers training camp and head coach Todd Bowles said on Tuesday that he remains unworried about where things stand.
Vea is looking for a new contract and he requested a trade as camp got underway, but there’s been no reports of progress toward either outcome over the last week. That suggests Vea won’t be taking part in any on-field work in the near future and Bowles told reporters that the situation won’t become urgent for a while.
“Again, it’s still early,” Bowles said in a press conference. “We’ve only been in pads for two days. We’re not concerned at this point and I think those things take care of themselves. Once you get past two or three preseason games, you start to worry a little bit.”
Bowles said Vea has been “very engaged” despite his impasse with the organization, but a finish line remains somewhere over the horizon in Tampa.
Bucs Clips
Last year, Buccaneers rookie linebacker David Walker was making a great impression. But then, in the team’s third training-camp practice, he suffered a torn ACL.
This year, Walker is back. And he’s back to making a great impression again.
“He’s got his quickness and his speed back,” Bucs coach Todd Bowles said, via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times. “So as a pass rusher, he’s looked very good as far as his movements and everything else. I was just excited to see him in pads last year [before the injury], so right now he looks very good. He’s looking fast.”
Walker, a fourth-round pick, is ready to make the impact he didn’t get a chance to make in 2025.
“I just want to thank God,” Walker said, per Stroud. “The injury was big and the whole time I knew that He didn’t bring me this far to bring me this far. So I knew I had to attack rehab, I knew I had to do those things and I’m here. I’m back playing the game that I love. It’s exciting. It’s exciting.”
The Bucs will get a better look at what he can do when he practices for the first time in pads, on Monday.
“I think he can do almost everything,” Bowles said. “Height-wise, he’s probably the shortest of the bunch. Everybody forgets he’s 260-something. He plays with great leverage and power. I think he’s played both sides. He’s probably a good inside kicker as well getting off the ball and doing some things like that. So when he gets the pads on, we’ll figure it out.”
”I’m just taking it day by day,” Walker said. “I’m not trying to look too far ahead. I’m not trying to look at whether I might be playing or not. I’m trying to do what I can do to compete.”
If he does what the Bucs think he can do, they’ll go a long way toward boosting their pass rush. Having first-round rookie Reuben Bain Jr. won’t hurt.
If we’ve learned nothing about sports documentaries in recent years, it’s that the subjects of the documentaries often have the ability to keep some of the facts that have been documented from being included in the finished product.
And so it should surprise no one that Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield had the ability to pull the plug on anything that the producers of the Quarterback series proposed for inclusion into the final cut.
The topic came up during Mayfield’s Thursday press conference, the one that focused primarily on his contract situation with the team.
“To be honest with you, I didn’t watch the full series,” Mayfield said. “They sent all the clips of us in it, just so I could give the final OK. Apologies to the families of little kiddos because the language on there is actually not very suited for them. It’s — might be a little angry elf on the field every once in a while. So that’s probably the part that I do regret a little bit, but that’s the fire on the field, unfortunately, that comes out on TV.
“But, yeah, I wanted to portray that I’m all ball. It’s — you can say what you want in the media. You can say I’m cocky and whatever, but it’s all ball. I love my teammates, I love this game, and I love playing it.”
Mayfield added that “there’s a few things” he exercised his prerogative to remove from the show.
It’s the key caveat to keep in mind as to any of these shows. Even though we’re ostensibly getting access to key behind-the-scenes moments, we still only get to see and hear the things the subject of the production wants us to see and hear.
And it’s surely fair to assume the other quarterbacks who have submitted to the series have had that same power. Approval of the final cut became part of the deal from the early days of Hard Knocks. In 2010, when the question of final say had become a talking point, former Ravens coach Brian Billick confirmed that his team had the ability to remove content during the very first year of the show, in 2001.
While it’s better than the alternative of having nothing at all, the power of the teams in Hard Knocks or the players in Quarterback to say “strike that from the tape” should always be remembered.
Especially when things slip through that probably should have been scrubbed, like the time Hue Jackson clumsily asserted in a meeting with his staff that “I get to drive this bus” and pretty much all of the Giants’ run on the one-and-done offseason version of Hard Knocks.
On Thursday, Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield had plenty to say about his inability to get the team to offer him a contract that he deemed to be suitable. On Friday, coach Todd Bowles was asked for his reaction.
“I didn’t have a reaction,” Bowles told reporters. “You know, he had a few things to say. He said it. We’re all about ball today, and we moved on.”
Bowles has the kind of even keel that rarely results in him having a public reaction to anything — except when the team blew a Thursday night game against the Falcons.
From Bowles’s perspective, Mayfield’s status beyond 2026 doesn’t matter. With 10 head-coaching jobs opening up after the 2025 season, it’s clearer than ever that the NFL is a year-to-year business.
Mayfield’s contract status gives him an added incentive to have the best year possible in 2026. Which will boost Bowles’s prospects for returning in 2027.
When it comes to the battle between the Buccaneers and quarterback Baker Mayfield, the fans may be naturally inclined to support the team. One of the men who block for Baker is publicly supporting the player.
On the key question of whether Mayfield is a “franchise quarterback,” Bucs guard Cody Mauch said this to reporters on Friday, via Abby DiSalvo of the Tampa Bay Times: “One hundred percent. He for sure is.”
Mauch knows Mayfield’s malcontentedness with his contract won’t affect him on the field.
“It sucks to see him go through this and whatnot, but it’s not going to change his mentality, the way he plays,” Mauch said. “He’s talked a lot about it, but he’s just going to go and play ball.”
The fact that other players are being asked about Mayfield’s contract makes it a distraction by definition. But the side issue will subside quickly.
“The biggest thing we took away from it is that we’re playing ball now,” Mauch said. “He’s not worried about contract stuff. It’s all about the 2026 Bucs.”
Come 2027, it may be all about Baker leaving the Bucs.
“It’s unfortunate, but he’s gonna go ball out and it’s gonna get made right,” Mauch said. “No doubt in my mind he’s gonna do that and get even more money, so it’s gonna work out better for him in the end.”
With the NFL evolving into a one-year-at-a-time league, it’s easier than it used to be for the players to forget about anything but this year. That’s what the Tampa Bay players should do, and Mauch has given them the key talking points for their own inevitable questions about Baker’s contract brouhaha.
If, as it appears, quarterback Baker Mayfield doesn’t sign a new contract with the Buccaneers until after the 2026 season, what happens next?
The team will have, in theory, exclusive negotiating rights with Mayfield until the opening of the negotiating window in March. By then, Mayfield may be determined to see what the market will be for him in 2027. (There’s a chance his agents already have an inkling as to the possible options.)
The franchise tag will be available. With a cap number in 2026 of $39.975 million, the 2027 tag would be $47.7 million. As noted by the folks at Spotrac, Mayfield’s current deal has a $30.15 million dead-money charge for 2027. Using the tag would result in Mayfield counting for $77.85 million against the cap in 2027.
They could tag him and trade him, but they’d need to carry the extra $47.7 million in cap space until they do.
Or the Bucs could let him walk away. The market would then determine his value.
That’s where it gets interesting. Via ESPN, Mayfield’s camp pointed to quarterbacks whose contracts are currently north of $50 million in APY: Jordan Love ($55 million), Trevor Lawrence ($55 million), and Brock Purdy ($53 million). Right or wrong, deals of that magnitude were given to players who were drafted and developed by the team that paid them. Veterans rarely get that kind of a contract from a team for which they’ve never played.
It still happens. Kirk Cousins has twice gotten major contracts on the open market. The Vikings made him the highest-paid quarterback in the NFL in 2018, when he left Washington. The Falcons paid him $45 million per year two years ago.
Much of what happens in early 2027 depends on how things go this year. The better his season, the more he’ll make. And the more likely the Bucs will be to find a way to tag him.
That’s where the dog starts chasing its tail. The more likely he’ll break the bank as a free agent, the more likely it becomes that the Bucs will tag him.
Then there’s the possibility that Mayfield’s decision to take a flamethrower to the Bucs wasn’t just Baker being Baker but a strategic move aimed at making them want to move on.
If so, the Buccaneers had better have a good plan for finding a quarterback in 2027. The current options on the roster are Jake Browning, Jalon Daniels, and Connor Bazelak.
Which confirms the point. If Mayfield leaves, they’ll need to find a new starter.
There’s a long way before we get there. But there isn’t. Once the season gets rolling, it’ll be over before we know it. And then the question will be whether it’s over for Mayfield in Tampa.
Thursday’s surprising decision by Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield to publicly peel back the curtain on the details of his contract talks with the team created several questions.
Here’s one: Did the Buccaneers offer him a “two-year deal” or did they offer him a two-year extension to his existing contract, making it a three-year deal?
Mayfield has reportedly characterized it as a two-year deal. Per a source with knowledge of the situation, it was a two-year extension.
It’s a subtle but significant point. Mayfield believes he was “disrespected.” An offer of a two-year deal seems less respectful to a reasonable person with no skin in the game than an offer of a three-year deal.
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported that the Buccaneers ultimately offered Mayfield “a two-year deal worth slightly above $100 million in total.” While not mentioned in the ESPN article, this necessarily means it was a two-year extension; given the manner in which veteran contracts are analyzed, a two-year, $100 million deal would have a “new-money” average of $72.5 million, based on the “old money” of $27.5 million.
That’s where the disconnect may be coming from. Mayfield may be looking at the offer in total average from signing, and the Bucs may be looking at new-money average. In this specific case, a two-year extension worth more than $100 million has a new-money APY of more than $50 million. The three-year deal would have a real average from signing of $42.5 million.
While none of it apparently matters at this point, given the lingering impasse that Mayfield currently has no desire to attempt to resolve, it underscores the reality that teams and players often interpret contract offers very differently. Mayfield’s goal is to get the fans to agree that he was indeed “disrespected” and “undervalued.” Characterizing the Buccaneers’ offer as a two-year “deal” and not a two-year “extension” is one way to tip public opinion his way.
Will it work? In a question of laundry versus person wearing the laundry, the fans typically get behind the laundry. And if the ultimate fight is whether the contract will have a value from signing that is closer to $50 million than $40 million, most fans won’t be persuaded to alter their habit of rooting for the laundry.
Baker Mayfield has some clear problems with the way the Buccaneers handled negotiating a potential contract extension this offseason, saying he feels “disrespected” and “undervalued” during his Thursday press conference.
But he also took issue with the way the club has handled its negotiations with other players — while also claiming he doesn’t have larger concerns about the franchise.
In his first answer about his contract situation, Mayfield brought up and took up for defensive tackle Vita Vea, who is staging an apparent hold-in after requesting a trade. A pillar of the Bucs’ defense for years, Vea is set to enter the last year of his contract.
"[H]opefully Vita gets his back fixed and gets his deal done,” Mayfield said. “He’s the second-longest tenured Buc behind CG [Chris Godwin] and Vita deserves that. He’s the anchor of our defense. So, I hope they take care of him.”
Mayfield also brought up left tackle Tristan Wirfs’ negotiation from 2024 as a negative example of the Buccaneers’ negotiating style.
“I’ve sat here and watched these guys go through it — even Tristan,” Mayfield said. “So, talk about the best tackle in the league. Only person in NFL history that’s been an All-Pro at right and left, had to have a hold-in in training camp to get it done. So, disappointing. You hope they take care of their guys. But, like I said, it’s going to be a good year.”
It’s worth noting that Wirfs did not become a first-team All-Pro at left tackle until after his second contract was signed in early August of 2024.
Still, when asked directly if he has concerns about the way the Buccaneers have handled their proverbial franchise players, Mayfield said, “Not at all.”
“I think that’s an easy scapegoat to the outside media, but to be honest with you, inside the locker room, all that does is bring us closer together,” Mayfield said. “The downstairs aspect of our building is really, really special. And our guys know that. And they cherish that. So, it’s only bringing our guys together. That might be a negotiating tactic on their part. But, like I said when I got here in 2023, it’s a really close-knit locker room. And that’s the leadership that was here prior to me getting here. And just the way they carry each other, carry themselves, lead by example. And when it comes to things like this, it’s separate from the football thing. You take care of each other, you play on the field, good things happen, you take care of each other, and go from there.”
Mayfield may be making a distinction between the players part of the building (downstairs) and the football administration part of the building (upstairs) when talking about the media and scapegoats. But his own words demonstrate his disappointment with Tampa Bay’s front office when it comes to his and Vea’s respective contract situations.
In a frank press conference on Thursday morning, quarterback Baker Mayfield said he feels disrespected by the Buccaneers after his imposed deadline passed without receiving a new contract.
Mayfield laid out his issues with the franchise, but also left the door open to getting something done before the season if the club can work out an agreement with his agent.
But given Mayfield’s comments on Thursday, any agreement between the two sides feels unlikely.
“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. “And I don’t know if they thought I was just going to take some of the offers that they gave. But I’m at the point of my career and understanding what I brought to this franchise — one, I’m very, very grateful for the chance they gave me, do not get me wrong on that. But I also 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. Just feeling comfortable in feeling that.
“So, disappointing in that regard to not have…to feel disrespected a little bit. And that’s really the disappointing part, to feel undervalued after thinking you’ve earned it.”
Jeremy Fowler of ESPN reports the Buccaneers offered Mayfield a two-year deal, which disappointed the QB. Mayfield told Fowler the Bucs were “pretty far” from a $50 million average annual value in the offer.
Since Mayfield arrived in 2023, he’s started every game for the franchise with a pair of postseason appearances. The club beat the Eagles in the 2023 postseason, but lost to Detroit in the divisional round before falling to Washington in the wild card round of the 2024 postseason. The team missed the playoffs in 2025.
Overall, the Bucs have gone 27-24 in the regular season with Mayfield at QB over the last three seasons.
“This is not a ‘poor me’ thing,” Mayfield said. “There’s a lot of other people who 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. 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. So to not have a deal done is very disappointing.
“But I said, the deadline was the deadline. I addressed the team to let them know I meant that. It’s all ball. I’m with these guys. I think all the guys that have been here know exactly who I am. The guys that are new here, I wanted to address that because they might’ve had a notion prior to coming here about who I am as a person. But it’s all team. It’s all about winning here now and what we’re going to do.”
Mayfield noted that part of the reason for his start-of-camp deadline was to avoid the contract becoming a distraction.
“Yeah, like I’ve told you guys, it’s all ball. I don’t want to talk about it,” Mayfield said, also noting that he’s not going to answer questions about the contract after Thursday. “And if you’ve waited this long to take care of your franchise quarterback, that’s too bad, because it’s only going to get worse from here. I’m going to have a really good year.”
But there is a chance the Bucs and Mayfield can put all of this behind them for an extension.
“They’re not talking to me, I know that,” Mayfield said. “If my agent answers it, he’s not going to bother me with it unless it’s actually recognized for my value.”
So that’s the opportunity. As for the future, Mayfield doesn’t see the Bucs tagging him next offseason (“There’d be a lot of dead money,” he said), but does anticipate their offer going up after a successful season.
“Obviously, yes,” Mayfield said. “But, I’ve been on the other side of the nasty business that is the NFL. And so, yeah, I have hope. But expecting and hoping [are] two different things. Yeah, I hope so. But all I can control is how I play this year and how the team does this year. And, for me, that’s wins. Good things happen when the team wins. The rest should take care of itself.
“I think if I hadn’t gone through a couple of different situations earlier on in my career, I’d probably be in a different head space,” Mayfield added. “It also helps being a little bit more mature now, and having different priorities in life. But, yeah, I’m at peace. I think what I’ve done here is my resume and I think it spoke for itself. And so, if that’s not recognized, that’s OK. I’m just going to continue to add to it.”
Despite feeling disrespected, Mayfield noted that the potential for more money isn’t his driving motivating factor.
“No. Money should never be the motivation in football,” Mayfield said. “It’s, how do I help this team win? That’s never going to be the motivation for me. When it comes to having a chip on your shoulder and all that, for me, it just puts me in the mindset of betting on myself. And that’s something I’m pretty familiar with. And it’s a good place to be. As a high-competitive guy, sometimes you have to put yourself backed into a corner and fight your way out. But I have a lot of guys and a lot of staff around me that are with me. So, I’m not alone in it. We’re fighting for the same goal, and that’s to be playing in February.”
And at this point, Mayfield says it’s “really easy” to just focus on getting prepared for the upcoming regular season.
“When you’re not presented with an offer that’s appealing whatsoever, it’s easy to turn the page,” Mayfield said. “But also, it’s that time of the year where you’re itching to get on the field. You’re itching to see how this team comes together, how the offense comes together in a new system with a new coach. It’s just the exciting time of year that, on paper, we’ve got a lot of potential. But it’s just potential.
“So, we know we have to put that all together. So, yeah, it’s easy to put that in the past when you’re coming together with a great group like this.”
The Buccaneers entered training camp with a pair of contract impasses taking center stage.
Quarterback Baker Mayfield is expected to play out the season on the final year of his deal after failing to come to agreement on an extension this offseason and defensive tackle Vita Vea requested a trade after trying to land a new contract of his own. At a press conference, Bowles was asked about keeping the focus on football as the negotiations play out publicly and said he isn’t worried about players taking their eyes off the ball.
“Well, there [are] players every year [that] you’re going to have them [with]. These happen to be two of our biggest players,” Bowles said, via a transcript from the team. “We haven’t had two of our biggest in a while, but we’ve had players every year. It just hasn’t been of that magnitude. But, it’s always about football. There [are] always going to be distractions just like there are on game day. There are going to be sudden changes and there are going to be sudden changes on the field. We have a very professional and mature group with a lot of leadership there, starting with Baker. So, he makes sure that’s separate. He makes sure the team knows that’s separate. Like I said, we’re not going to make this training camp about what he signed or what he didn’t sign or it being his contract year. We’re just going to play ball.”
Bowles said questions about whether there’s a chance of continued contract talks with Mayfield should be addressed to General Manager Jason Licht. Mayfield may have an opportunity to address that first while Bowles keeps his attention on making sure the team is ready to go for Week 1.
