The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have made it clear that they would like to bring veteran quarterback Baker Mayfield back after a strong season last year, but it sounds like they have decided not to get a new deal done this week and are instead going to let him at least test the free agent market and talk with other teams.
During a recent interview with the Tampa Bay Times, Tampa Bay Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht made it clear that the team intends to let Baker Mayfield – and other unsigned players – explore the free agent market, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to bring them back.
“A lot of [the team’s pending free agents] know what the market is at this point,” Licht said Friday according to Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times. “I think the start of the negotiation period is really almost the same as the start of free agency, because they’re already talking and negotiating.
“So, as we get to Monday, any of our players that aren’t signed, it doesn’t mean they’re not coming back. It just means that maybe we’ve got an agreement that, hey, they’ll see what [their] worth [is]. We have a disagreement right now, and then let’s just try to work it out. We don’t want the player to be unhappy, either.”
It’s clear that the Buccaneers are interested in bringing Mayfield back and probably like their chances of re-signing him, but there is certainly a bit of risk that comes with the decision to allow him to test the open market before getting a deal done, as there’s a chance he could get a better offer from another team.
We’ll have to see how this decision plays out for them.
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