Baker Mayfield isn’t making any excuses about recent injury that’s affected his play
Mayfield won’t let his oblique injury stand in the way of getting the job done.
It seems like just yesterday that Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield was the talk of the league and the main frontrunner for the NFL’s MVP award.
Well, this is called a week-to-week league for a reason. Just two games and a bye week later, basically all said talk has died off after Mayfield strung together mediocre performances that featured several bad decisions and inaccurate throws.
Apparently, the oblique injury Mayfield dealt with leading up to the win over the New Orleans Saints and the one he likely dealt with at some point during the loss to the Detroit Lions has been affecting his game. The Bucs’ star quarterback admitted as much on Wednesday, but he made sure to let it be known it’s still not an excuse for how he’s played.
“It’s not really an excuse, you just gotta get used to it and figure it out and go from there,” Mayfield told reporters after practice. “Some throws, if I didn’t have my feet perfect, they weren’t going to be accurate. And normally I can make up for it with how I changed my arm angle and stuff like that. But, yeah, some of it was different. But just [have] to live and learn.”
It’s clear something was off with Mayfield
The Lions defense absolutely dominated the Bucs offense and it placed Mayfield in plenty of spots where he couldn’t make a throw or made a bad decision, but it was clear something was wrong from the moment he attempted his first pass against the Saints and the oblique issue makes sense.
Fortunately, Mayfield (along with the rest of the Bucs) got to rest up over the bye week. Hopefully that helped accelerate the healing process a bit and has him in a much better spot heading into this week’s game against the New England Patriots.
“It definitely helps getting rest,” said Mayfield. “Just, you know, still moving the body around a little bit, not letting yourself get too sore, but then also just the non-contact definitely helps.”
Mayfield is still one of the best QBs in the game, but the Bucs really need him to get back to his Week 1-6 form as they head into the back half of their schedule that includes games against the Buffalo Bills, Los Angeles Rams, aforementioned Patriots, and then two games against a rambunctious Carolina Panthers squad that will certainly be up to the challenge once they kick off.
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