Baker Mayfield Faces Interception Spike Projection After 16 Picks in 2024
baker mayfield enters the 2026 season with a label attached: a candidate to throw more interceptions after finishing 2024 with 16 picks and 2025 with 11. He is also heading into the final year of his deal with the Buccaneers, so the numbers now sit next to his future, not just his stat line.
Mayfield's turnover profile
Mark Chichester of Pro Football Focus tied the projection to Mayfield’s history, writing, "Few quarterbacks in this dataset illustrate the volatility of interception luck more clearly than Mayfield." That view leans on 2019, when Mayfield threw 21 interceptions with Cleveland even though the model projected him closer to 13.
Chichester added another line that goes straight to the reason this season is being watched so closely: "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." The point is not that every interception was on him, but that the profile has produced volatile results before.
The recent numbers cut both ways. Mayfield threw for 4,044 yards, 28 touchdowns and 10 interceptions in 2023, then jumped to 4,500 yards, a 71.4 percent completion rate and 41 touchdowns in 2024. The interception total climbed with that bigger passing load, reaching 16, before falling to 11 in 2025 even as he completed 63.2 percent of his passes, threw for 3,693 yards and posted 26 touchdown passes.
Buccaneers offense around Mayfield
Tampa Bay is not asking him to do this alone. The Buccaneers hired Zac Robinson as their new offensive coordinator, and Mayfield knew him from his time with the Rams at the end of the 2022 season. The offense also added running back Kenneth Gainwell and rookie receiver Ted Hurst.
The complication is that the Buccaneers missed the postseason for the first time since Mayfield arrived in Tampa Bay. They are trying to get back to the 2024 level of production under Robinson, and the passing game will sit at the center of that push because the quarterback on the final year of his contract is the one carrying the evaluation.
That leaves a narrow read on the season ahead. If the ball security looks more like 2023 or 2025, the Buccaneers can live with the turnovers; if it tilts toward the 2024 spike, the interceptions will sit beside every contract conversation and every decision about the quarterback outlook in Tampa Bay.
