The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are all out on keeping Baker Mayfield at the Raymond James Stadium. Not only are they willing to move heaven and earth to keep him in the team, but the next person they’re looking to fill the offensive coordinator position has worked with him before.

The latest OC candidate the team has interviewed is geared towards making the former first-overall pick as comfortable as possible.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers to interview former Rams coordinator Liam Coen
According to Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times, the team is looking to interview Liam Coen to take over the reins of the Tampa Bay offense.

The Kentucky offensive coordinator’s qualifications for signing with Tampa Bay was his handling of Mayfield when the Rams picked him off waivers during the 2022 season. His system was a major contributing factor to Mayfield’s redemption arc.

However, he isn’t the only one with ties to Mayfield who was interviewed for the position:

Tampa Bay already has interviewed Browns offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt, who helped Mayfield to a career-high 95.9 passer rating in 2020. Mayfield passed for 3,563 yards and 26 touchdowns with only eight interceptions and led the Browns to a wild-card win over the Steelers.

The team is going all out to ensure Mayfield stays with the team. While there is interest elsewhere, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are confident that these moves will convince the free agent to call Tampa home and sign a long-term deal.

Bucs look for team-friendly deal to keep Baker Mayfield, Mike Evans in Tampa
The Buccaneers are likely going above and beyond for Mayfield is so they can make him sign a team-friendly deal. Former agent Joel Corry believes that Mayfield signing a reasonable contract with the team can help them keep their most talented players, as reported by Yardbarker’s Zac Wassink:

“Derek Carr, on paper, is $37.5M per year, but when you look at the structure of the deal, that’s misleading,” Corry explained, as shared by the JoeBucsFan website. “There’s $50M in the last year of the deal. It’s really $100M over three years, at best. It’s $60M in cash over the first two years. It’s structured where he’s got a low cap number the first year, about $7.2M because he’s got a $28.25M signing bonus.”

Getting Mayfield on a reasonable contract will allow them to hold Mike Evans down via the franchise tag. However, it may be tough to convince Mayfield, who had a career season of 4044 passing yards and 28 TDs on 64% completion, to take any less than he deserves.

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