New Tampa Bay Buccaneers coaches and a Heisman-winning protégé. Can Baker Mayfield recapture his magic with this fresh offensive brain trust?
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have found their new top pairing to work with quarterback Baker Mayfield. After tabbing former Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator Zac Robinson to fill that role for the Buccaneers, the team hired Indiana co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach Chandler Whitmer as their quarterbacks coach.
Whitmer is now tasked with getting Mayfield back on course after a decline in production following a career year in 2024. The good news is that Whitner can now have on his resume that he developed a Heisman Trophy winner in Indiana quarterback and presumed No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft, Fernando Mendoza.
Mayfield is also a former Heisman winner, taking home the award in 2017 while at Oklahoma during a season in which he threw for 4,340 yards with 41 touchdowns and just five interceptions as the Sooners went 12-1 and reached the College Football Playoffs.
Now Mayfield gets to work with a quarterbacks coach in Whitmer who just helped Mendoza become the story of the college football season. Mendoza became the first Heisman winner ever at Indiana and the Hoosiers won their first national championship after becoming only the second team in major college football history to go 16-0, joining Yale's 1894 Bulldogs (FCS North Dakota State has also recorded a 16-0 season).
Mendoza threw for 3,535 yards, 41 touchdowns and only six interceptions. He is now expected to be selected by the Las Vegas Raiders and reported new head coach Klint Kubiak with the No. 1 pick in April’s draft -- Kubiak’s hiring cannot become official until after the Super Bowl as he is coaching in the game as offensive coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks.
So, on the one hand, Mayfield gets at least one coach with success working with quarterbacks. But what about Robinson?
Atlanta had their share of issues at the quarterback position, between the injuries to Michael Penix Jr. to the play of Kirk Cousins. Robinson did have the ability to lean on Bijan Robinson on the ground.
Robinson rushed for 1,478 yards and eight touchdowns and added 79 receptions for 820 yards and four touchdowns on his way to his first All-Pro nod.
Given steady quarterbacking, Robinson and Whitmer have a chance to make some magic together. It’s not like they haven’t done it together before.
The two worked together in Atlanta in 2024, when Robinson was the offensive coordinator and Whitmer was the pass game specialist. They helped guide Atlanta to the sixth-best offense in the league at 369.8 yards per game. The Falcons had a top-10 rushing offense and a top-five passing offense. That was with Cousins floundering late in the season and the Falcons making the switch to Penix Jr. Cousins still finished with over 3,500 passing yards that season.
The duo now hopes to get Mayfield back to a higher level of play. In 2024, Mayfield threw for a career-high 4,500 yards and 41 touchdowns under then-offensive coordinator Liam Coen, now coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars. Mayfield was playing at an MVP level in the first half of the season before the wheels fell off due to injuries throughout the offense, as Tampa Bay lost seven of their final nine games after a 6-2 start and missed the playoffs at 8-9.
It’s yet another change at offensive coordinator and play caller for Mayfield, who is now under his third person in charge of the offense in three seasons in Tampa Bay. Robinson will be Mayfield’s 10th offensive coordinator in ten NFL seasons. Mayfield has had success with offensive play callers from the Sean McVay coaching tree, namely Coen, McVay’s offensive coordinator in 2022.
In addition to his career year in 2024, Mayfield threw for 850 yards and four touchdowns in five games and four starts with the Los Angeles Rams after the team claimed him off waivers from the Carolina Panthers in December during the 2022 season.
Now, Mayfield gets to work Robinson, another former disciple of McVay who also worked with Coen in Los Angeles in 2022. Robinson spent five seasons with McVay, from 2019-2023, coaching quarterbacks and wide receivers during that time and also serving as the pass game coordinator in 2022 and 2023 before becoming Atlanta’s offensive coordinator in 2024 and meeting up with Whitmer, who had spent the previous three seasons with the Los Angeles Chargers as an offensive quality control coach.
Seeing the numbers Cousins and Penix put up for the Falcons in 2024 and Mendoza for Indiana in 2025, one might think Mayfield would be feeling very excited to see what Robinson and Whitmer can do for him in 2026 in a season where his young receivers should be back and healthy, namely Emeka Egbuka, Jalen McMillan and Tez Johnson.
Add in another potential threat at tight end, whether that’s Cade Otton or someone new, possibly via the draft, and this offense has potential next season.
The Buccaneers know it’s a make or break season under head coach Todd Bowles. On paper, the additions of Robinson and Whitmer to the staff should greatly boost the Buccaneers’ chances of getting back to the playoffs next season. Injury luck will be a factor again, but Tampa Bay has a major chip on their shoulders and now the offensive staff to take advantage.
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