Baker Mayfield believes one-year stint with LA Rams 'hit reset button' on his NFL career

Two days after the Rams claimed him from waivers, Baker Mayfield found himself playing in a new stadium with new teammates and fans as he ran a new offense. Yet what he accomplished in the game felt so very familiar.

Despite not knowing the Rams playbook, Baker Mayfield successfully directed a late, 98-yard drive to beat the Las Vegas Raiders. It was an exhilarating moment for a beleaguered quarterback and one-time top pick of the NFL Draft.

Baker Mayfield knew he was merely playing out the year with the Rams. But in hindsight, he now believes that his short tenture with the team revived his NFL career. The former Heisman Trophy winner from Oklahoma now is playing for the Tampa Bay Bucs. He’s in contention with Kyle Trask for the starting job previously held by Tom Brady. Yep, there’s no pressure there.

Mayfield recently did a teleconference with reporters for a celebrity golf tournament. That’s when the quarterback looked back on his brief time playing for the Rams as well as the time spent with the Browns and Carolina. He went No. 1 in the 2018 NFL Draft. Then came the fall. By December 2022, Mayfield had fallen to third string on a team that had already fired its head coach.

“I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason,” Baker Mayfield said, noting that the weeks he spoent with the Rams represented “the first time I had fun playing football in a few years. It brought that feeling of having that success and really remembering what it was all about, Kind of hit the reset button for me.”

Will the Baker Mayfield reset stick in the Tampa humidity?

He also credited Rams coach Sean McVay and others on staff with helping with the reset. “To be around those guys and to be in that offense and now looking forward to being in Tampa because it’s a very similar system with our new offensive coordinator [David Canales],” Mayfield said. 

Baker Mayfield now will find out if the reset he experienced late last year in Los Angeles will hold after his move to the Florida Gulf coast. The Bucs signed him in March to a one-year, $8.5 million contract. If he beats Trask for the starting job, the contract likely will be extended.

So far, the Baker Mayfield career revival is holding — at least through OTAs and minicamp.

“It was great to get to be around the whole staff, the organization, the teammates especially,” Mayfield said, adding that he got “to know everybody and see just how they’ve had so much recent success and see the key pieces in that locker room.”