There are NFL fanatics. There are NFL fantasy fanatics. And there are many who occupy both roles. Regardless of where you stand, there’s no denying the fact that over the years, fantasy football has taken the world by storm.
Fantasy football has become a massive industry in and of itself. As a result, many knowledgeable football minds have found their success focusing exclusively on the fantasy side of the NFL. Of those individuals, it’s hard to find anyone who has succeeded more within the industry than NBC Sports’ lead fantasy football analyst Mathew Berry.
Prior to joining NBC, Berry was the lead fantasy expert for ESPN, and many credit his work as being synonymous with the explosion of fantasy football around the world. As such, Berry’s opinions are held in high regard when it comes to fantasy football predictions.
On Saturday, Berry released his 2025 QB rankings, and Buccaneers’ quarterback Baker Mayfield was ranked higher than we’ve ever seen before. Berry projects Mayfield to be the sixth best QB in fantasy this season, one spot ahead of Kansas City Chiefs QB, Patrick Mahomes.
When asked on his TV show how he feels about the departure of Liam Coen might negatively impact Baker Mayfield’s success, Berry was quick to point out a variety of reasons why he believes Baker’s success is not predicated, in any way, on the presence of Coen.
“Since the start of last season, no player in the NFL has more passing TDs than Baker Mayfield. And yes, Liam Coen moves on, but that was the argument two years ago when Dave Canales moved on. Their new offensive coordinator was their passing game coordinator last year. It’s going to be the exact same offense. It’s all the same personnel. The fact that they brought Godwin back. That Evans is going to be back. It’s a pretty good offensive line. And to me actually, I feel better about Baker going into this year than I did last year.”
Berry continued to discuss why he expects Baker to continue his stellar play in Tampa Bay, and he credits the cast around Mayfield as a huge reason why.
“You add in the emergence of Bucky Irving that gives them a real threat in the backfield. I just feel better overall about the Buccaneers offense, and Baker at the center of it, in his third year now in that system, it’s going to be the same system even though Liam Coen is in Jacksonville.”
Although fantasy performance isn’t necessarily correlated with team performance, it’s pretty clear that one of the most established fantasy experts in the world has a ton of belief not only in Baker Mayfield, but the group of playmakers around him, to experience great success in 2025 for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
