When the Atlanta Falcons hired Kevin Stefanski to be their new head coach, it exposed some bad blood between Stefanski and Baker Mayfield. Mayfield's Twitter fingers exposed a rivalry NFC South fans compared to Bird and Magic, the Yankees and the Red Sox, and Josh Allen and the Super Bowl.
The former No. 1 overall pick felt slighted about the way his former head coach handled his exit back when they were with the Cleveland Browns, and he's ready to battle the Falcons with an extra-large chip on his shoulder in 2026, but I'm not convinced the rift between the two is as big as we believe.
Baker is set to be one of the league's top free agents next offseason, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers haven't offered him a long-term extension just yet, so hear me out. Atlanta will enter next spring with $141.1 million in cap space, so if Stefanski wants to make a splash at the quarterback position and reunite years later, it sounds incredibly unlikely, but doesn't seem that crazy.
Could the Falcons pull off a reunion between Baker Mayfield and Kevin Stefanski in 2027?
Since joining the Bucs in 2023, the 31-year-old has been one of the best signal-callers in the NFL, so they'd be foolish not to extend him. And given the state of the Dirty Birds' own QB room, he'd probably be their most consistent option since Matt Ryan if Mayfield were somehow able to put his ego aside and join the Falcons.
Signing the two-time Pro Bowler would mean two things with the Falcons: both sides of the QB competition between Michael Penix Jr. and Tua Tagovailoa crashed and burned, but they also aren't picking high enough in the 2027 NFL Draft to be able to draft a guy like Arch Manning or Dante Moore.
I'm sure Stefanski will do his due diligence on the 2027 QBs, but there will be no option he's more famiiar with than Mayfield. He knows he'll thrive in his system and with these weapons since he's done it before, but is that common ground worth throwing away a promising long-term outlook to win now?
The bigger issue here is that reuniting Mayfield with Stefanski would not come cheap. Spotrac projects his market value at four years and $214.4 million, which would come in around $53.6 million a year, and that's not feasible for a team that has to pay Bijan Robinson, Drake London, and Kyle Pitts. And it sounds like the Bucs are going to extend him, so I would call this highly unlikely.
The animosity is clearly still there, but if there's anything that can help mend fences in the modern NFL, it's a big, fat contract. Money talks in this business, and if the Falcons are looking to compete instantly rather than try their luck in one of the most generational QB classes in recent memory, seeing them join forces with a monster deal after the events of this offseason would be cinematic.
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