As it turns out, the Buccaneers will not let Baker Mayfield enter a contract year. Despite the quarterback indicating he did not plan to negotiate after the start of training camp, ESPN’s Adam Schefter and NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport report team and player have agreed on a three-year extension.

Mayfield landed a three-year, $165MM deal, Schefter reports. This will place him firmly in the $50MM-per-year club, with the $55MM AAV matching Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, Jordan Love and Matthew Stafford’s numbers. Burrow and Lawrence gave their respective teams seven years of control on their extensions — which both occurred with two years left on rookie contracts — while Love reached $55MM AAV by tying himself to the Packers for five seasons. Mayfield will now be signed through the 2029 season.

This comes out of nowhere, considering Mayfield made his timetable known and announced upon reporting to Bucs camp he would play out his three-year, $100MM contract. Tampa Bay has been regularly willing to let core players play out contract years. The team successfully re-signed a host of key cogs — from Mike Evans to Chris Godwin to Jamel Dean to Carlton Davis to Shaquil Barrett to Mayfield (in 2024) — approach or hit free agency after playing out a deal. But Mayfield has shown plenty on his second Bucs contract; the team determined he was too valuable to proceed how it did two years ago.

At $55MM per year, Mayfield jumps in front of Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert, Jared Goff and Brock Purdy to match the Allen-Burrow-Lawrence-Love-Stafford quintet. This group sits behind only Patrick Mahomes and Dak Prescott in QB AAV. Although the guarantee structure will be pivotal here, this is a monster raise for Mayfield after he had hovered outside the top 15 among quarterback salaries entering the week.

More to come.