- Baker Mayfield has a seventh-year breakout: Mayfield wasn’t close to being a fantasy starter in 12-team leagues during his first six seasons but finished at QB3 last season.
- The Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost Liam Coen: Coen deserves a lot of credit for the Buccaneers' success last season. The Buccaneers will ideally be able to keep the same quality of offense without Coen this season.
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Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes
PFF’s Fantasy Football Player Profile series delivers the most in-depth fantasy football analysis available for the 2025 season.
Using PFF’s exclusive data, we evaluate player performance, competition for touches and how teammates and coaching staffs
Last updated: 7:15 a.m. Tuesday, June 3
Player performance
Baker Mayfield was the first overall pick of the 2018 draft by the Cleveland Browns. He peaked at 17.1 PPR points per game as a rookie with his 27-touchdown performance, and then it was downhill from there. He graded well in 2020 with an 85.1 passing grade, but that didn’t necessarily translate to fantasy production. He never averaged more than 10 rushing yards per game, and he averaged a rushing touchdown each season. The Browns moved on after 2021, so he was a starter for both the Carolina Panthers and Los Angeles Rams in 2022. His fantasy value was minimal even in superflex leagues despite starting 10 games.
Tom Brady retired after the 2022 season, which meant the Buccaneers needed a quarterback. The Buccaneers took a chance on Mayfield on a one-year deal, and he was the starter throughout the year. His play was fairly similar to his play in Cleveland in terms of his PFF passing grade. His fantasy production was a little better thanks to a better set of receivers. He finished ninth in fantasy points for a quarterback, but that was primarily thanks to his ability to stay healthy all season. He finished 20th in fantasy points per game.
The Buccaneers changed out their offensive coordinator, bringing in Liam Coen, and that led to a significant difference in Mayfield’s fantasy performance. His dropbacks per game only increased by one, and his big-time throw rate and turnover-worthy throw rate both went in the wrong direction, but he managed 5.5 more fantasy points per game. He lowered his average depth of target, allowing him to throw more accurate passes, which led to a career-high completion rate and allowed his receivers to do more after the catch. This led to a career-high in yards per attempt.
Most importantly, his touchdown rate was up significantly. His 2.4 passing touchdowns per game were the second-most for a quarterback last season. He was also second in passing touchdowns per attempt at a 7.2% rate. This led him to finish third in both total fantasy points as well as fantasy points per game.
Projected utilization
Mayfield will remain the clear Buccaneers starter this season, but with a new offensive coordinator. Coen landed the head coaching job with the Jacksonville Jaguars, leading Josh Grizzard to take over as offensive coordinator. Grizzard has never run his own offense before, but he’s used to a pass-heavy offense that scores a lot of points.
It’s fair to expect at least some regression in Mayfield’s stats. No quarterback in the last 35 years has achieved a 7.2% or better touchdown rate in back-to-back seasons. At the very least, we can expect some regression on his short passing touchdowns. The Buccaneers had a 38.9% run rate when the Buccaneers were within five yards of scoring during the first half of the year last season, and that jumped to 57.1% over the second half, likely due to the team’s confidence in Bucky Irving.
One bright spot last season was Mayfield’s willingness to scramble. He only ranked 14th in rushing attempts by a quarterback, but he was fifth in explosive runs, often avoiding the initial pressure that led to a wide-open path toward a first down on those plays. He only avoided 12 tackles in the run game, while the four players with more explosive runs averaged 31 avoided tackles. We can expect his increased scramble rate to be there, but he might not have as many breakaway runs.
Impact of teammates
While we can expect some regression here and there, the big reason to remain optimistic that Mayfield can remain a fantasy starter is his supporting cast. The Buccaneers’ running backs, wide receivers and tight ends had an 80.7 overall offensive grade last season, sixth among all teams. Tampa Bay was able to retain everyone, including Chris Godwin, who should be back from injury, and the team spent its first-round pick on Emeka Egbuka. Their skill players should remain among the best in the league.
The Buccaneers similarly had a top-three team in terms of pass-blocking grade from their offensive line. This was mainly from left tackle Tristan Wirfs, who allowed zero sacks, one hit and 11 hurries through 638 pass blocks. The other three veterans on the line made significant strides in 2024 compared to earlier in their careers. All five played at least 16 games last season for at least 900 offensive snaps. It’s unlikely the offensive line will have as good injury luck this season, but as long as that injury isn’t to Wirfs, the line should remain great.
Bottom line
Baker Mayfield was a top-three fantasy quarterback last season. While some of his stats are expected to regress, he remains a good quarterback with an excellent supporting cast, which should keep him among the top-10 fantasy quarterbacks.
Footnotes
- Statistics in tables and charts were chosen based on their ability to predict future fantasy performance on a per-game or per-opportunity basis or to describe the player relative to others at the same position.
- “Opportunities” are defined as passing dropbacks, rushing attempts and routes run as a receiver.
- Numbers are provided either by season or based on the past three years. For rookies, only college statistics are included. For non-rookies, only NFL statistics are considered, regardless of whether they played in college within the previous three years.
- As college competition is easier than NFL competition, most rookies are likely to see a decline from their historical numbers.
- Only FBS data is considered for college players and comparisons.
- Kneel-downs are removed from rushing data to provide cleaner quarterback rushing rate statistics.
- The table colors in this article range from blue (indicating good/high) to red (indicating bad/low).
- All percentiles and color codings compare the given player to others with a high sample of opportunities. Generally, the cutoff is one-third of the possible opportunities in the sample. If a player does not meet the threshold, they are still included in the comparison, though their results may appear better or worse than expected due to the smaller, less predictive sample size.
- Information on utilization classifications and their importance can be found here for running backs, wide receivers and tight ends.
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