Shaun King Doubts Buccaneers Can Win Super Bowl With Baker Mayfield, Would Draft QB

The Buccaneers were a pleasant surprise in 2023, as they won the NFC South and made the playoffs one season after Tom Brady retired.
Baker Mayfield played a big role in that, finishing No. 18 in Total QBR and earning the first Pro Bowl berth of his six-year career.
Mayfield made only $4 million last year and is in line for a considerable raise, but former Buccaneers quarterback Shaun King thinks Tampa Bay should be cautious about tying itself to a veteran signal-caller who lacks an elite ceiling.
“I don’t think I can win a Super Bowl with Baker,” said King, who won a championship with Tampa Bay and started 22 games for the team between 1999 and 2003. “I think I can be good with Baker. I can be a team that competes for an NFC South division title, and if it all falls right, we can win a game in the playoffs. But I don’t think I can win a Super Bowl with Baker. And this isn’t a knock on Baker. This is me being honest about what else is out there, and what you have to overcome to win a championship.
“I wouldn’t want to pigeonhole myself contractually into living in the past, which would be: Baker outperformed what we thought, now we’ve got to pay him what other starting quarterbacks are getting when they hit free agency. No, that’s what got the Giants in trouble. What did they give Daniel Jones, $40 million? Come on. Now they’re stuck. He wasn’t better than Tyrod Taylor. I don’t want the Bucs to make that same mistake, in my opinion.”
The Buccaneers have the No. 26 overall pick in the draft and King would like to see them pull the trigger on a quarterback prospect.
“I think the move is to sign Baker to a two-, three-year deal where the team has the leverage on the backside of it, and draft the right young quarterback,” King said. “Obviously the Kyle Trask pick, in hindsight, was a bad pick, especially because it was in the second round. You could have added a significant piece, and Trask hasn’t been able to beat out anyone.
“Get the right young quarterback, whether it’s a Michael Penix or a J.J. McCarthy. I’m just going by guys that can potentially still be available by the time that pick rolls around. That allows them to sit and learn the system for a year under Baker.”
King believes a fair contract comparison for Mayfield is the 3-year, $75 million deal Geno Smith signed last offseason. But he believes Mayfield’s reps could use Derek Carr’s four-year, $150 million deal as leverage.
“That’s where the battle is going to be,” King said. “If I’m the Bucs, I want to be closer to Geno Smith. If I’m Baker, I want to be closer to Derek Carr.”
Mayfield set a career-high with 28 touchdown passes in 2023 and his interception percentage of 1.8 was significantly lower than his career average.
But King still sees a style of play that is going to be susceptible to mistakes.
“There are times when Baker Mayfield thinks he is Brett Favre,” King said. “You can’t knock it because it takes supreme self-confidence to succeed at that position in that league, but it also gets him in trouble, because he never really finds that balance: ‘Well, I can’t really make that throw so let me check the ball down; I’m probably getting a little outside of what my ceiling is talent-wise.’ It leads to mistakes in some of the biggest moments.”
King calls Mayfield the “best short-term answer” for Tampa Bay, outside of competing for Kirk Cousins in free agency.
“But do I want to marry myself to Baker Mayfield? No,” King said. “Get a young guy, and convince Baker to take something around that Geno Smith number. And if he doesn’t, we’ll go with a young guy and build a group around him.”