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Baker Mayfield Will Reluctantly Put Saints Hate Aside With NFC South Title at Stake

Mayfield's hate of the Saints is no secret.

Tim Capurso

Mayfield and the Buccaneers will secure the NFC South title with a Saints win over the Falcons.
Mayfield and the Buccaneers will secure the NFC South title with a Saints win over the Falcons. / Screengrab YouTube @buccaneers
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In helping to lead the Buccaneers to a 16-14 win over the Panthers in Week 18, quarterback Baker Mayfield has put himself in a position he likely never thought he'd be in: having to root for the division-rival Saints, a team he openly hates.

Tampa Bay entered Saturday’s game against the Panthers needing a win to keep its chances of winning the NFC South title alive, and got the job done. The win sets up a bizarre showdown between the Falcons and Saints in which the game means nothing to either team playing, but everything to the Buccaneers and Panthers.

So will Mayfield, who has made his abhorrence of the Saints publicly known, now bring himself to root for New Orleans?

The Buccaneers quarterback told ESPN's Peter Schrager after the game that he'll be rooting for the Saints on Sunday, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy.

“Yeah,” Mayfield said when asked if it will be agonizing to root for the Saints. “A tie still gets us in. So, they can still tie.”

While Mayfield is being a bit tongue-in-cheek, a tie between the Saints and Falcons indeed would still result in a Buccaneers' division title. So, given his dislike for the Saints, would anyone blame Mayfield for pulling a Switzerland in the New Orleans-Atlanta game?

Mayfield expresses dislike for Saints

It's not clear exactly when Mayfield's disdain for the Saints began, but tensions certainly seemed to rise after a December 2023 Buccaneers' loss to the Saints in which Mayfield took a late hit from then-Saints safety Tyrann Mathieu, leaving the Tampa Bay QB in considerable pain while also drawing the ire of his teammates.

Mayfield, during an appearance on the Pardon My Take podcast in July of 2025, was asked if he felt bad about throwing the ball late in a 2024 win over New Orleans to help preserve teammate Mike Evans's career 1,000-yards receiving streak.

“I hate the Saints,” Mayfield said. “Absolutely not.”

The Buccaneers and Saints weren't becoming any friendlier in a January 2025 contest, when a big hit to Mayfield sparked a mini-brawl between the two teams.

Then, Mayfield, in the lead-up to a Week 8 game against the Saints earlier this season, doubled down on his disdain for the Saints while shedding some light on why he feels so strongly about his division rivals.

“It has not exactly been clean play from their part when we play them," Mayfield said at the time. "It is a physical game; it is what it is. You expect it [from a] division rival. ... Yeah, not much else to say besides for the fact that I do not like them.”

Now Mayfield is in the precarious position of needing a Saints victory to help his own team's cause.

And no one is enjoying this development more than the Saints.

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Tim Capurso
TIM CAPURSO

Tim Capurso is a staff writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Prior to joining SI in November 2023, he wrote for RotoBaller and ClutchPoints, where he was the lead editor for MLB, college football and NFL coverage. A lifelong Yankees and Giants fan, Capurso grew up just outside New York City and now lives near Philadelphia. When he's not writing, he enjoys reading, exercising and spending time with his family, including his three-legged cat Willow, who, unfortunately, is an Eagles fan.

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