Buccaneers Announce Shocking Baker Mayfield Update After MRI That Changes Everything
This article was originally published on Total Pro Sports.
Baker Mayfield walked off the field early, hand tucked against his body, trailing by four and headed toward a third straight loss on Sunday
The Buccaneers fell 23-16 to the Vikings. Minnesota linebacker Blake Cashman hit Mayfield late in the fourth quarter on a fourth-down play. The quarterback immediately grabbed his throwing hand and headed to the sideline, then the locker room.
Coach Todd Bowles confirmed afterward that X-rays showed no fracture, though the player’s thumb was dislocated. An MRI was scheduled for Monday to check for any more serious damage.
Results Came Back Better Than Feared On Monday
That MRI brought good news. ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Monday that the scan revealed “no fracture and no ligament nor tendon damage.” For a quarterback whose season already felt fragile, that was about as clean a result as anyone could hope for.
Cameras caught Mayfield’s reaction the moment he went down. Audible pain got picked up by the FOX broadcast mics. That moment made Monday’s clean MRI update feel like an even bigger relief once it came through.
Mayfield had already been struggling before the injury. He completed 17 of 34 passes for 217 yards. He added one touchdown and one interception. It extended a rough start that dates back to Week 1.
Undrafted free agent Jalon Daniels came on for the final series once Mayfield left. It was a brief, unplanned look at the Bucs’ depth behind their starter, and not the kind of audition Tampa Bay wanted to give him under these circumstances.
Tampa Bay Just Committed To Mayfield Long-Term
Tampa Bay dropped to 0-3 with the loss. It’s the team’s worst start in years, and it comes just weeks after the front office bet big on its quarterback.
The Buccaneers and Mayfield agreed to a three-year, $165 million extension on September 8. That figure landed close to what ESPN projected back when the two sides were still far apart in July. The deal locked in his long-term future in Tampa well before this thumb injury entered the picture. A banged-up hand doesn’t change that commitment, but it does complicate its rollout.
The clean MRI at least keeps a short absence on the table instead of a longer one. Dislocations without ligament or tendon damage generally heal faster. That said, no specific return timeline has been announced yet.
For a team already sitting winless, that’s about the best update available right now. Mayfield’s status for the next game remains unclear. Bowles hasn’t named a starter beyond confirming the injury itself.
There’s also the bigger picture to watch. An 0-3 start under a quarterback the franchise just paid handsomely isn’t the beginning anyone in Tampa Bay had in mind. If Mayfield needs real time to heal, that pressure only builds heading into Week 4.
