Bruce Arians praises Baker Mayfield, cautions him not to run
Before Bruce Arians unretired to become the head coach of the Buccaneers in 2019, he said he'd return for only one job — the Browns. That meant he'd return for only one quarterback — Baker Mayfield.
Mayfield is now the quarterback of the Bucs, and Arians loves it.
“I like the way they are interacting,” Arians said on his new podcast, No Risk It No Biscuit, via JoeBucsFan.com. “I was at practice the other day. There is a great vibe. Guys love Baker. He’s a fighter. . . . Baker has brought some life to that offense.”
That meshes with what receiver Mike Evans told PFT after Sunday's win over the Bears. (It also implies that the offense had no life in 2022, when Tom Brady was the quarterback.)
"We love Baker’s energy," Evans said. "He's a great leader. He's only been here like five, six months now, but he's a hell of a leader. He had a bad rep before, I don't know why. He's a great guy, great teammate, and he's a hell of a player."
Mayfield had a great year in 2020, and he seemed to be on track to becoming a franchise quarterback. A shoulder injury suffered while making a tackle after a turnover in Week 2 of the 2021 season threw his career off track. It's now back on track.
Arians had some advice for how to keep it that way.
“Like I told him, ‘You don’t need to be trying to run them linebackers over every week unless you put some big shoulder pads on,'” Arians said. "‘You already won the locker room over. You don’t have to do that bravado shit.'"
Arians is right. Quarterbacks need to protect themselves, however they can. As Arians explained it, teams don't pay running backs because they have short careers; why would a quarterback want to play like a running back?
Still, Mayfield will tuck the ball and run when he has to. It's who he is. It can't be turned off. And it's one of the main reasons why the Bucs have flipped the switch on a 2-0 start to the season.
