Lavonte David: Baker Mayfield "was going through a lot" physically in 2025

Player mentions

Article text

Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield has a reputation for playing through anything. In 2025, he may have been playing through everything. Retired Tampa Bay linebacker Lavonte David recently opened up about Baker's many bumps and bruises during an appearance on The Arena . "The season’s over now, I can talk about it ,” David said, via JoeBucsFan.com. “Man, Baker was going through a lot, bro. Baker had a lot of injuries that you didn’t expect a quarterback to play through. You know what I’m saying? He had the oblique injury, he had the shoulder injury, he had a lot of things. You know, ankle injury, knee injury. . . . He was really trying to push through and really trying to be the player that we needed him to be." Mayfield started all 17 games. He was listed as questionable only twice. In Week 4, he was questionable with a right biceps injury. In Week 13, Mayfield was questionable with a left shoulder injury. In all, Mayfield appeared on the injury report for 10 games: Week 3 (foot/toe), Week 4 (right biceps), Week 5 (right knee/biceps), Week 8 (knee), Week 10 (knee/oblique), Week 12 (illness), Week 13 (left shoulder), Week 14 (left shoulder), Week 15 (left shoulder), Week 18 (right shoulder/knee). And that's just the stuff that was listed. If he didn't get treatment and/or otherwise kept it to himself (David mentioned an ankle injury that was never listed), it wouldn't have been listed. Bottom line? Mayfield is tough, determined, and able to play through injury. It gets potentially awkward if/when the team thinks a backup at 100 percent would be better than Mayfield at something less than that. If that question ever emerged for the Bucs in 2025, they did a very good job of keeping it quiet.