Baker Mayfield built his name at Oklahoma by turning a walk-on path into a Heisman Trophy and the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft.
Nearly a decade later, the former Sooners star has secured another defining piece of his football story.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Mayfield agreed to a three-year contract extension worth $165 million, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported Tuesday. The deal averages $55 million per season and arrived just before Tampa Bay opens the 2026 campaign.
Mayfield said earlier this summer that Tampa had become the first NFL stop that gave him the same feeling he found in Norman.
“I want to be there long term. They treated me right, and it’s the first place I’ve gotten to that feels like Oklahoma,” Mayfield said in June.
That connection now has long-term money behind it.
Mayfield Gets the Number He Was Seeking From Buccaneers
The agreement closes a contract storyline that had lingered through the summer. Mayfield entered 2026 in the final year of the three-year, $100 million contract he signed with Tampa Bay in 2024, with $40 million due this season.
Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer had identified $55 million per year as a logical target months before the deal. Breer noted that the projected 2027 quarterback franchise tag and a second tag would push a two-year total above $110 million, creating a natural benchmark around $55 million annually. He wrote that a three-year, $165 million extension made sense.
That ultimately became the reported figure.
Mayfield’s second major contract with Tampa Bay also completes a sharp financial climb from where his career stood four years ago. The Cleveland Browns moved on from the former No. 1 pick in 2022. He then spent part of that season with the Carolina Panthers before finishing it with the Los Angeles Rams.
Tampa Bay gave him a one-year opportunity in 2023, and he responded by leading the Bucs to the playoffs. He followed with a career season in 2024, throwing for 4,500 yards and 41 touchdowns while completing 71.4% of his passes. ESPN reported in 2025 that the Buccaneers later reworked his contract to guarantee $30 million for 2026.
The latest extension removes the uncertainty altogether.
Oklahoma Remains Central to Mayfield’s Football Story
Mayfield’s NFL career has taken him across several franchises, but Oklahoma is the reference point he returns to when discussing belonging.
His three seasons with the Sooners produced 12,292 passing yards, 119 touchdowns and a 69.8% completion rate. He finished fourth in Heisman Trophy voting in 2015, third in 2016 and won the award in 2017 after throwing for 4,627 yards and 43 touchdowns, via Oklahoma’s official career statistics.
Oklahoma also notes that Mayfield became the first player since the NCAA permitted athletic scholarships in 1950 to begin his college career as a walk-on and later win the Heisman. His final season included unanimous All-America honors, the Maxwell Award, Davey O’Brien Award and Walter Camp Player of the Year Award.
That run made Mayfield one of the defining players of Oklahoma’s modern era and set up his selection first overall by Cleveland in 2018.
The NFL portion of his career became far less linear. Mayfield went from franchise quarterback to trade candidate, then bounced through Carolina and Los Angeles before stabilizing in Tampa.
Now the place he compared to Oklahoma has made its commitment unmistakable.
Former Oklahoma Heisman Winner Inks $165 Million Deal with Tampa Bay Buccaneers