Baker Mayfield doesn’t escape Sunday’s loss pain free
TAMPA — Baker Mayfield walked off the field and into the Bucs locker room very gingerly Sunday evening. The quarterback took a late, hard hit in the 23-13 loss to the Saints and admitted he was dealing with pain in his ribs.
But Mayfield, who returned to the field after the hit, said initial tests were encouraging.
“Ribs don’t feel too great right now,” Mayfield said after spending a long time in the training room getting treatment postgame. “X-rays, as of right now, are negative, so that’s good but we’ll do more exams to see what’s really bugging me. But I don’t have anything right now besides just sore.”
With less than two minutes left to play and the Bucs having just scored their second touchdown, Mayfield was looking to pass to Chris Godwin for a two-point conversion. After making the throw, Tyrann Mathieu hammered him in the shoulder/rib area.
“It was one of those scramble plays that, you know, last second throwing the ball to Chris ... (you’re) going to take hits,” Mayfield said. “They are a physical team. They played that way today. They hit us right in the mouth from the get-go. So, not exactly the mentality that we wanted to come out with. Needed to be the more physical team and we weren’t.”
Mayfield was in obvious pain after the late hit. He kneeled on the sideline and lowered his helmeted head onto the bench for a minute before getting back up. To add insult to injury, Mayfield was crouched over in pain when officials ruled that Godwin was out of bounds before catching the conversion pass in the end zone. The offsetting penalties led to another try. Mayfield was able to return to the field, but promptly threw an interception.
“He went back out there,” Bucs coach Todd Bowles said. “Obviously, it was a late hit. I’ve got to look at the film again to see what happened to him, but he went back out there after he got hurt. So we’ll see how he feels.”
Mayfield completed 22-of-33 passes for 309 yards and two touchdowns with two interceptions for a 91.6 passer rating. It was his 10th game with a 90-or-higher passer rating, joining Tom Brady as the only player in franchise history with 10 such games in a season.
Mayfield also established a career high in passing yards with 3,908 and passing touchdowns with 28 on the season.
Moving up the record books
Wide receiver Chris Godwin had three receptions for 81 yards and a touchdown, his 34th career TD reception. That tied him with Jimmie Giles and he surpassed Cameron Brate (33) for the second-most touchdown receptions in team history.
Meanwhile, Mike Evans, who finished with three receptions for 70 yards, moved past Calvin Johnson (11,438) for the 33rd-most receiving yards in NFL history. He also passed Johnson for the sixth-most receiving yards by a player through his first 10 seasons in league history. Evans has 1,233 receiving yards on the season, good for ninth-most in a single season in franchise history.
And the children shall lead
With two tackles, both for loss, outside linebacker Yaya Diaby leads all NFL rookies in that category this season with 11. Right behind him on the list is teammate Calijah Kancey (10). The Bucs rookies lead the NFL in tackles for loss this season with 21 (the Rams’ youths have 17).
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