TAMPA, Fla. -- It wasn't exactly how Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield drew it up.
After failing to clinch the division title at home against the New Orleans Saints in Week 17, Mayfield had to go on the road to face the Carolina Panthers -- the very team that cut him 13 months prior -- just to punch a ticket to the playoffs in the season finale.
And yet somehow Mayfield, the 2018 No. 1 pick on his third team since the Cleveland Browns traded him away in the summer of 2022, left the field at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte with a 9-0 victory, to chants of "Baker!