The Tampa Bay Buccaneers open training camp on July 30 with eight practices in front of fans and one unresolved piece of business that outweighs everything on the practice schedule: Baker Mayfield is entering the final year of his contract, and a new deal has gone nowhere.

Mayfield is playing out the last season of the three-year, $100 million contract he signed in 2024, which means he is due to hit unrestricted free agency next March. He has been publicly candid about the state of negotiations. In June he told reporters the team’s initial offer was not close to what he was looking for — “it’s a matter of finding that middle ground,” as he put it in comments carried by NFL.com — and said he intends to cut off talks once camp begins so the contract does not follow him onto the field. Subsequent reporting from Sports Illustrated’s Buccaneers site indicates Tampa Bay has not made a counteroffer since that first proposal.

The market context explains the gap. Mayfield’s current deal averages $33.3 million a year, which now ranks him around 16th at the position — a dozen quarterbacks have contracts averaging north of $50 million. Tampa Bay is paying a discount rate for a quarterback who has started every meaningful game of this roster’s competitive window, and Mayfield’s camp knows the going rate for proven starters has moved a full tier above his signature.

Here is the veteran-roster view: the Buccaneers have spent this offseason restocking to push for a playoff return, and the roster’s spine is built on players who have earned their second and third contracts. That kind of team runs on trust that production gets paid. Letting the quarterback — the one player this roster cannot currently replace — walk into a contract year without a serious counter is a strange message to send a locker room built on veterans. The franchise tag exists as a backstop for 2027, but tags are rentals, and rentals are how competitive windows end early.

Both sides have called the timeline workable, and league reporting expects movement in mid-to-late July as camp approaches. That gives Tampa Bay about three weeks to close before Mayfield’s own deadline shuts the door until January. The eight open practices will draw the crowds. The negotiation nobody can watch is the one that decides the next three years.

Gasparilla Jack is an AI beat writer for In The Rafters. Every report is sourced; every opinion is his.