Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield is heading into the last year of his contract, but General Manager Jason Licht indicated on PFT Live that an extension could be coming soon.
Asked if Mayfield and the Bucs will work out a long-term contract extension, Licht answered, “Everything’s on the table right now.”
“I don’t have a timeline for that but our plans revolve around Baker in the future, so I don’t think anybody wants to see Baker leave the organization,” Licht said. “We know everything we need to know about Baker, being with him for three years, and everything is positive. He’s tough as hell, great leader. No timeline, but all plans revolve around Baker.”
The Bucs are currently projected to have about $23 million in cap space when the 2026 league year starts, and Licht said the team’s contracts are structured in such a way that they always have flexibility to extend the players they want to extend and bring in free agents the Bucs think can help them win.
“We always like to pride ourselves in having flexibility for things that might come up,” Licht said.
Licht said having Mayfield on the team is a draw to free agents, comparing his presence to having Tom Brady.
“It was like when we had Tom,” Licht said. “A lot of players love the thought of playing with Baker, on both sides of the ball.”
And the Bucs would like to be able to tell free agents that Tampa has Mayfield locked in for a few more years.
Mike Evans will play a 13th season. The question is: Will the wide receiver return to Tampa, or will he finish his career elsewhere?
“Love Mike and would love to have Mike back,” Bucs General Manager Jason Licht said Tuesday, via video from Pewter Report. “He’s earned the right with his resume, and Mike as a person, what he’s meant to this entire community, fan base, all of us. I could go on and on, which we have. He’s earned that right. We’d love to have Mike back. We’ll just see how the process goes.”
Licht has talked to Evans and the wide receiver’s agent, Deryk Gilmore. The sides have “a very open line of communication,” Licht said. But Licht acknowledged he has no guarantee the Bucs will get a chance to match once Evans hits free agency on March 11.
Evans ranks 20th on PFT’s top-100 free agents list.
“We’ll have to see how that goes. I can’t tell you for sure that we would,” Licht said. I don’t know right now we’re in the point where we’re at is he’s kind of testing the market and we know we do have open lines of communication and always will.”
Evans, 33, had hamstring and collarbone injuries last season, forcing him to miss nine games. It was his first non-1,000-yard season, as he had career lows in catches (30) and yards (368).
It sounds as if Evans has played his final game in Tampa, but the Bucs are holding out hope they can get him back.
“Ultimately, we’d like to have him retire as a Buc,” Licht said.
Regardless, Licht said Evans has “earned” being called one of the franchise’s all-time great players, and when he retires, Evans will join the likes of Warren Sapp, Derrick Brooks, John Lynch and Doug Williams in the team’s Ring of Honor.
Ronyell Whitaker, a cornerback who spent six years playing pro football, has died at the age of 46.
“The Whitaker family is heartbroken to share the passing of our beloved son, brother and friend, Ronyell Deshawn Whitaker, who departed this life on Feb. 22, 2026,” Whitaker’s family said in a statement published by the Vikings. “Born on March 19, 1979, Ronyell lived a life marked by passion, perseverance and purpose. A gifted athlete, he proudly played high school football for Lake Taylor High School in Norfolk, Virginia, and college football for the Virginia Tech Hokies, where his talent, determination and leadership on the field made a lasting impact. Ronyell went on to pursue his professional dreams in the National Football League, signing as an undrafted free agent with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2003. Throughout his career, he also played for the Minnesota Vikings and the Detroit Lions, and he later continued his football journey in the Canadian Football League with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers before retiring from professional football in 2010.”
Whitaker was born and raised in Norfolk. He was the nephew of boxing legend Pernell Whitaker.
After retiring from playing, Whitaker coached high school football and also was CEO of Whitaker Group, which specialized in relocations and short sales for professional athletes, who often have unique needs in having to find a new home quickly, something Whitaker himself knew as a player who had moved around in his career.
No cause of death has been announced.
Running back Javonte Williams bet on himself last year, signing a one-year, $3 million deal. He delivered, with a career-high 1,200 rushing yards.
His reward was a three-year, $24 million deal to remain with the Cowboys.
Since the Williams deal was the first significant contract signed by a looming free agent, it’s important to remember a few things as we approach new-contract season. The initial reports routinely overstate the true value of the contract. For example, the reported $16 million in guarantees for Williams surely aren’t fully guaranteed at signing, and there’s little about the structure of the deal. There could be a little fudging at play to make the deal look better than it is, with the reporters who rush to Twitter with the early information rarely if ever insisting on full and accurate details. (If they do, someone else gets the scoop.)
For now, even the potentially inflated initial reporting reinforces an important point: The running back position continues to be undervalued.
The deal, if it’s truly worth $8 million per year, puts Williams at 16th among all current running backs. And while he took the offer before the annual tampering festival in Indianapolis, it’s believed that the offer the took was the best one he was going to get.
It’s also possible the Cowboys tried aggressively to get Williams signed before he could hit the market, perhaps by trotting out their CBA-violating practice of negotiating directly with the player. Or by making it clear that they’ll find another cheap veteran running back in the second or third wave of free agency, when players sign modest one-year deals.
Still, what would Williams have gotten on the open market? The absence of state income taxes in Texas are a factor. (Most players only care about APY, and that’s often a mistake.) Only the superstars at the position get market value. Eagles running back Saquon Barkley leads the way, at $20.6 million per year. 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey’s current deal has a new-money average of $19 million.
It happens for one very simple reason. The supply of capable running backs outweighs demand. Teams can resort to the draft for a younger, cheaper, and usually healthier player in lieu of paying a veteran who may not be able to duplicate his performance in a contract year.
Every year, college football generates plenty of running backs who can play at the NFL level, if they can be trusted to hold onto the ball and if they are able to pick up blitzers in pass protection. Most of them have their best years under slotted rookie contracts. When those expire, teams look for another young player to replace them.
The Williams contract gives other teams a data point that will become relevant to their negotiations with running backs. The other players who’ll be trying to get paid (Kenneth Walker III, Breece Hall, Travis Etienne, Rico Dowdle, Rachaad White, Isiah Pacheco, JK Dobbins) will have to deal with the argument that a guy who rushed for 1,200 yards in 2025 got only $8 million per year. (The counter would include that Williams isn’t much of a factor in the passing game, and that he lacks breakaway speed.)
Then there’s Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs. Currently eligible for a second deal, he has shown the kind of superstar ability that would justify a market-level contract.
And how about Falcons running back Bijan Robinson? Repeatedly called the best player in the entire league by his former head coach, Raheem Morris, Robinson will be in line for a superstar contract, too.
Will the Williams deal hold down what the Lions will offer Gibbs and what the Falcons will offer Robinson? It shouldn’t be a factor, at all. Gibbs and Robinson are far closer to Barkley and McCaffrey than the players who are hitting the market. Still, all running backs who are ready to become free agents will have to deal with the fact — as underscored by the Williams deal — that the running back market continues to be not what it could be, or perhaps what it should be.
Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield added some spice to his team’s rivalry with the Falcons when Kevin Stefanski became Atlanta’s head coach, making clear that he still has hard feelings about the way his time with Stefanski in Cleveland ended. But now Mayfield is downplaying any issue with Stefanski.
“There’s stuff there, but it’s not like it’s beef,” Mayfield said in a Super Bowl interview with Sports Illustrated, via NFL.com. “We’ve worked together, anytime you know somebody, you want to beat them whether it’s a good or bad relationship.”
Mayfield said that if there’s extra motivation to beat the Falcons, it’s because the Buccaneers want to get back on top in the NFC South, not because Stefanski is the Falcons’ coach.
“Not a revenge game of a sense of Atlanta, but we lost the division for the first time since four or five years, so, any divisional game will be a revenge game, I guess,” Mayfield said.
Mayfield has had a lot more success than Stefanski since the two of them parted, and Mayfield knows beating Stefanski on the field will mean more than any words he can say.
