The Minnesota Vikings aren’t adding to the QB room ahead of the regular season. In fact, if anything, they’ll be saying goodbye to either Max Brosmer or Carson Wentz with four signal-callers on the roster heading into training camp.
However, there are a number of feasible scenarios in which Kyler Murray is not back with the franchise next season and/or JJ McCarthy has either departed Minnesota or is not in line to start in 2027 and beyond.
Murray and McCarthy are currently battling it out for the QB1 role, a fight that head coach Kevin O’Connell has indicated will stretch into training camp and possibly through multiple preseason games. But regardless of who wins and starts the season, or who ends up finishing it, the Vikings may well be looking for a new option by the time next offseason arrives.
With that hypothetical, yet reasonably possible, outcome as context, radio broadcaster Zach Gelb pitched the Vikings as a potential landing spot for two-time Pro Bowler Baker Mayfield (2023, 2024). Gelb’s suggestion piggybacked off a social media post from Pro Football Talk regarding Mayfield entering the final year of his $100 million contract in Tampa Bay this season without an extension.
“The Bucs seem to believe they’ll [offer] Baker Mayfield more than any other team would,” PFT posted to X Thursday, July 9. “This overlooks the possibility that Mayfield would take less from another team in March, just to make a point.”
“He should try and go to Minnesota or Pittsburgh this offseason,” Gelb wrote of Mayfield in his repost.
Baker Mayfield Reinvented Himself With Buccaneers
GettyQuarterback Baker Mayfield of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Mayfield, a former No. 1 overall pick of the Cleveland Browns (2018), who led that franchise to its first postseason win in more than 25 years back in 2020, got new life when he joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2023.
He led the Bucs to a 9-8 record and the NFC South Division title. Tampa Bay went on to win a playoff game over the Philadelphia Eagles that postseason.
Mayfield inked his nine-figure contract the following spring and led the Bucs to another division title (10-7) and playoff appearance following his second Pro Bowl campaign in 2024 on the strength of 4,500 yards passing and 41 TDs with a 71.4 percent completion rate.
He began last season hot and was garnering MVP chatter approximately one-third of the way through the campaign before his production, and the production of the offense, fell off down the stretch. The Bucs came up just shy of the postseason with a record of 8-9, while Mayfield threw for nearly 3,700 yards, 26 TDs and 11 INTs.
Baker Mayfield’s Current Salary Projection Tops $50 Million Annually
GettyQuarterback Baker Mayfield of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Mayfield will play the upcoming campaign at 31 years old and become an unrestricted free agent in March of 2027, assuming the Bucs don’t extend him before then.
Spotrac projects his market value at $214 million over a new four-year deal, or approximately $53.6 million annually.
That precise salary would make Mayfield the eighth-highest paid quarterback in the NFL based on annual average salary, just ahead of Jared Goff of the Detroit Lions and Brock Purdy of the San Francisco 49ers, both of whom make $53 million per year.
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