Will Baker Mayfield Throw More Interceptions This Year?

It is well known that going into the 2026 season, it’s a big year for Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield. He’s on the final year of his deal, so a lot is on the line from that standpoint, but there’s more to it as well. Mayfield is a passionate player who surely has a bad taste in his mouth with how the Bucs failed to miss the postseason for the first time since Mayfield came to Tampa Bay.

Baker Mayfield Through The Years With The Bucs

Outside of the wins and losses in the three seasons that Mayfield has been with the Bucs, he’s had solid performances statistically with the offense. His 2023 season was good as he recorded 4,044 yards with 28 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. The 2024 season will be most remembered as it was great with 10 wins, coinciding with the best year of his career.

Mayfield was incredible, throwing for 4,500 yards with a completion percentage of 71.4 and an astounding 41 touchdowns. The one knock against his stellar season was throwing 16 interceptions, the second-highest of his career, which was tied for the league lead with Atlanta’s Kirk Cousins.

Mayfield even acknowledged going into the 2025 season that one of the things he was working on was to limit those interceptions to keep the ball with Tampa Bay’s talented offense. While he accomplished this by throwing only 11 interceptions, Mayfield also had six interceptions that were dropped and 20 throws on the season that were considered turnover-worthy.

Additionally, his production was average overall, and technically his worst as a Bucs quarterback. Mayfield’s completion percentage dropped all the way to 63.2 while his yardage fell to 3,693 yards along with 26 touchdown passes. All were the lowest in his Bucs tenure.

But 2026 is a new year for Mayfield.

The offense will be presumably healthier, especially on the offensive line. He has new weapons on this team with running back Kenneth Gainwell and rookie receiver Ted Hurst. Plus, he’s working with a new offensive coordinator in Zac Robinson, whom Mayfield does know from his time with the Rams at the end of the 2022 season.

Part of the idea with bringing Robinson to the Bucs is to try and recapture the greatness that was the Bucs offense from 2024 when Liam Coen was offensive coordinator. Coen and Robinson were coaches together in Los Angeles and are great friends off the field that talk all the time.

If the Bucs are able to recapture that with Robinson and Mayfield, it could make the Bucs a title contender once again. But would that mean Mayfield’s interception numbers would go up, too? It’s a fair tradeoff if the offense is going to average 30 points per game, though more turnovers could be one result of it.

PFF Predicts More Picks For Baker Mayfield

In an article from Mark Chichester of Pro Football Focus, Chichester writes that Baker Mayfield is a candidate for a quarterback that is likely to throw more interceptions this upcoming season. There were eight quarterbacks mentioned, including Mayfield. This is what was said:

“Few quarterbacks in this dataset illustrate the volatility of interception luck more clearly than Mayfield. In 2019 with Cleveland, he finished as the second-unluckiest quarterback in football, with a net-luck figure of -8.1, throwing 21 interceptions on a passing profile the model projected to be closer to 13. Six years later, the variance swung dramatically in the opposite direction. Mayfield’s 2025 season ranked seventh among the luckiest quarterback seasons in the league, fueled by a turnover-worthy-throw-to-interception conversion rate of just 25.0% on 20 turnover-worthy throws. Defenders dropped six additional would-be interceptions, and Mayfield finished with 11 interceptions despite league-average outcomes projecting closer to 14.

“The year-over-year swing was especially dramatic. Mayfield’s turnover-worthy-throw-to-interception conversion rate fell from 61.1% in 2024 to 25.0% in 2025, a drop of 36.1 percentage points that ranks among the 15 largest single-season swings in the entire dataset.”

There are varying factors season to season that can account for numbers rising and falling. More interceptions for Mayfield doesn’t necessarily mean that the team won’t be successful, but it’s obviously a notion that no Bucs fans want to hear. What might adjust these numbers as well is who impactful the Bucs run game will be this season. They’ll have a fully healthy offensive line, a healthier Bucky Irving, plus Kenneth Gainwell in the fold to improve the ground game. This could skew Mayfield’s passing numbers, too.

It’s hard to believe this will be Mayfield’s last year with the Bucs despite his contract being up. Both he and the team have expressed interest in a contract extension prior to the 2027 offseason. Whether that extension comes in August before the season or after the season remains to be seen.

The only thing we do know is that there should be some very entertaining football from Mayfield and the Bucs offense this season.