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On Mother's Day, Baker Mayfield and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers created a video to highlight the importance of their partners and moms for a successful career. The team asked for its players to deliver a message for their Instagram, and Mayfield used the opportunity to pay tribute to his wife, Emily Wilkinson, who recently welcomed their first child.
The first announcement that the quarterback was going to become a father happened in December, midway through his season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and their daughter, Kova Jade, was born on April 9. By then, her father had already signed a contract extension with the franchise.
Mayfield married Emily Wilkinson in July 2019, a couple of months before the start of his second season in the NFL. When the quarterback was selected to play at the 2024 Pro Bowl games in Orlando, she appeared next to him in many pictures during the weekend.
Baker Mayfield's career
Usually, when a team selects a quarterback with the first overall pick, it hopes that he can be there for a while. That didn't work for Mayfield, who played for a bunch of teams in the league and is now a part of the Buccaneers in their post-Tom Brady era.
It started as just another chance to rebuild his career. The former first-overall pick has had stints with the Cleveland Browns, Carolina Panthers and Los Angeles Rams with varying degrees of success.
Back in 2023, he signed a one-year deal worth $4 million with another $4.25 million available in incentives. That's far from what he expected to earn after his rookie deal, but that's life in the NFL; however, he played at such a great level that Tampa Bay decided to extend the partnership for a longer time, signing him to a three-year, $100M contract extension.
He largely made enough to take the Tampa Bay Buccaneers where they wanted to be. He got himself a playoff win, a nice contract for the upcoming seasons and security for the first time in his career. That's a very good thing for a quarterback of his level: good enough to play in the league but not a superstar by any means.
