Baker Mayfield and Bucs are forced into a situation they definitely won’t like after staying alive in playoff race
Well, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are still alive in the playoff race after beating the Carolina Panthers on Saturday, but the team still needs the New Orleans Saints to beat the Atlanta Falcons. The idea of the Buccaneers having to root for the Saints is quite ironic when stepping back and looking at how the […]
Well, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are still alive in the playoff race after beating the Carolina Panthers on Saturday, but the team still needs the New Orleans Saints to beat the Atlanta Falcons.
The idea of the Buccaneers having to root for the Saints is quite ironic when stepping back and looking at how the rivalry has evolved over the last five or six years. Both teams despise each other and they are more than willing to take the spat to the public stage, if need be.
Baker Mayfield has really developed a hatred for the Saints since he’s been in Tampa Bay and he explained why just a few months ago. Now, he finds himself having to root for a Saints tie or win, which has to be hard, yet manageable, to swallow.
“I mean a tie gets us in, so they could still tie,” Mayfield jokingly told reporters when asked how he felt about having to root for the Saints on Sunday.
“It is tough, man, it is tough,” Lavonte David said about rooting for the Saints. “[I] never thought I’d see the day where I’m rooting for the Saints. But I [have] some guys over there who I know, who I’ll get into contact with to make sure they handle business.”
“It’s not a good feeling. Those are rivals. To be honest, I might just go to sleep and wake up
to see what happened – that’s probably what I’m going to do tomorrow,” said rookie cornerback Jacob Parrish.
Bucs made their bed and now they need help from a rival
It’s funny how the NFL works. The Buccaneers now need one of their worst enemies to either tie or win in order for them to make the playoffs. This is due to the NFL’s three-way tie-breaking procedure set up for division teams stuck in a three-way tie for the lead. Once the dust settles, the Panthers would hold the advantage at 8-9 over both the 8-9 Bucs and Falcons because they are 3-1 in the four matchups against those two teams, while the Bucs are 2-2 and Falcons are 1-3.
If Atlanta loses, it’ll finish 7-10 on the season, which then kicks the tiebreaker back between just the Bucs and Panthers and the Bucs would win the common opponents tiebreaker with a 6-6 record to the Panthers’ 5-7.
“It’s disappointing today, it could be jubilation tomorrow,” Todd Bowles said when asked about having to wait for the final results to come in. “If tomorrow doesn’t happen, it’ll be disappointing. We put ourselves in this situation, we’re all grown men about it and we could have made a ton of plays, but we can’t look back and dwell on it. We just [have] to move forward and they showed fight tonight and they showed grit tonight, so we’ll just have to see what happens.”
As for Mayfield, well, he’ll have to grin and bear it for about 3-1/2 hours on Sunday and then if the Saints win or tie, he can celebrate the Bucs’ playoff berth and go right back to hating the guys in black, white, and old gold.
