Baker Mayfield doesn’t care how the Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the Atlanta Falcons in Week 8 nor should he
Baker Mayfield has basically been the epitome of a game manager over the last two weeks, but it doesn’t bother him a single bit.
Many figured Baker Mayfield’s return to the football field would provide the much-needed spark the Tampa Bay Buccaneers needed at 1-5.
Well, the Buccaneers are 2-0 since his return, but the wins have had very little, if anything at all, to do with Mayfield’s play.
Mayfield has thrown a grand total of 14 passes over the last two weeks, completing seven of them for 64 yards. All seven of said completions came against the Carolina Panthers in Week 7 – Mayfield made history against the Atlanta Falcons by becoming the first quarterback to win a game without completing a single pass since 1974.
On the flip side, the Buccaneers have rushed for a combined service 582 yards and four touchdowns over the last two weeks. Bucky Irving and Co. have completely dominated and it’s relegated Mayfield to more of an observer when it comes to making plays on the field.
And does Mayfield care? Not one bit. Nor should he.
“It’s winning – that’s the way I think about it. We won,” Mayfield told reporters after the game. “[It’s] getting our guys lined up, making sure we are running the right run plays. Obviously, ball security [is crucial] in these conditions – we had some early ones. We decided to go to the shotgun and pistol sets – it’s just easier to receive the snaps instead of it coming back through your hands under center.
“So, going from there and just trying to manage the game. [It’s] time management and just trying to bleed the clock as much as possible. Just get everybody on the same page and go from there. That’s my job in these conditions and, listen, I will do whatever it takes to win. That’s all that matters to me.”
Baker Mayfield is absolutely right but the Buccaneers need him to become a factor as quickly as Week 9
The Buccaneers absolutely need to do whatever it takes to win games, even with their 3-1 record over the last month. This team is still far from having its head above water and the upcoming matchup against the Chicago Bears in primetime at Solider Field will be the biggest test of the season.
“We did a lot to dig ourselves out of it,” Todd Bowles told reporters when asked about the Buccaneers’ ability to reverse course over the last few games. “We’re still in it being 3-5, not being .500 or anything else, I told them to keep their shovels close because we have a lot more digging to do, but it gets us back in it. At least it gets us back in it and now we [have] to dig even harder and dig even deeper just to get out of the hole.”
Beating the Bears would go a long way toward getting out of the proverbial hole. A win would put the Buccaneers at 4-5 overall, 4-2 in the NFC, and obviously they’re 2-0 in the division.
We will be having a completely different conversation at that point, but the Buccaneers definitely need Mayfield to factor into the upcoming matchup if they want to get there.
No one is saying to force Mayfield into the equation, but at the same time, it’s silly to expect this kind of success on the ground from the standpoint of a week-in/week-out basis. The Buccaneers undoubtedly have one of the NFL’s best rushing attacks and it will stay that way as long as the majority of the group stays healthy. At the same time, however, they’re bound to run into a brick wall at some point and that wall could very well be named Jeffery Simmons.
The best part of all this is, yes, the Buccaneers can lead on the ground game while they figure out the passing attack, which is definitely still a work in progress. That needs to happen sooner than later and if it does, well, we could be looking at a completely different team once the back half of the season kicks in.
