Relatable Baker Mayfield was perfect QB to follow Tom Brady with Bucs
TAMPA — Tom Brady gave the Bucs faith. Baker Mayfield gives them fire.
Brady was polished and a perfectionist. Mayfield is about effort and is the everyman quarterback.
Playing until he was 45, the greatest of all-time won seven Super Bowls, and his final chapter in Tampa Bay was one for the ages. The 28-year-old Mayfield is closer to the age of his teammates, relatable, and his story remains unwritten.
“I had a relationship with Tom, but it wasn’t like the relationship I have with Bake,” left tackle Tristan Wirfs said. “It’s just different. It’s hard to explain, you know? Tom was like more of a — not a coach — but as a 21-year-old kid seeing Tom Brady (in 2020), that’s how I looked at him. I’m not going to go out and have beers with Tom, you know? So it’s just a little bit different in that regard.
“I think just how (Mayfield) fights, how hard he fights. I think you saw it a couple times (last) Sunday (against Jacksonville). That scramble. Like we all see it. We’ve seen it for weeks now. I think he pushes all of us just to do the same thing. Just to fight.”
That struggle, from a 4-7 start to four straight wins while playing arguably the best football of his career, has Mayfield and the Bucs one win from an NFC South title.
It’s a comeback befitting of a player like Mayfield, who is piloting his fourth team in 17 months. He’s made the best of a one-year, $4-million deal that may include a bigger payoff if his team reaches the playoffs. Winning the division is worth an extra $1 million to the former Heisman Trophy winner.
Given the fact that the Bucs were more than $57 million over the salary cap, that they were going to try and thread a needle between a reset and repeat, could there have been a better quarterback for the Bucs than Mayfield? Consider that before signing with Tampa Bay, Mayfield was traded from Browns to Panthers, where he went 1-5 as a starter. He asked for his release and was claimed by the Rams, where he went 1-3 as an injury replacement to Matthew Stafford.
“Free agency allowed me to pick the organizational stability and know what is here,” Mayfield said. “That’s what you look for when you have an opportunity to choose. You look for that and then you do the best you can and make the most of it.”
During the four-game win streak, Mayfield has thrown nine touchdowns with one interception. On the season, he has completed 64% of his passes for 3,598 yards with 26 touchdowns and eight interceptions.
That includes a game-winning, 75-yard drive at Atlanta in the final minute and becoming the first visiting quarterback with a perfect passer rating at Lambeau Field.
Whereas the Bucs were the oldest team in the NFL in Brady’s final season (average age of 27.15 years), they are the youngest under Mayfield (25.3).
Brady had TB12, personal trainer Alex Guerrero and handpicked veterans such as Rob Gronkowski, Leonard Fournette, Antonio Brown and Julio Jones.
Mayfield has found a way to also connect with new teammates, starting with the offensive line hired to protect him. Upon arriving as a free agent in March, he attached himself to Wirfs, Luke Goedeke and others, and they spent a lot of time off the field together.
“He’s authentic. People sense it and it isn’t fake,” Bucs No. 3 quarterback John Wolford says of Mayfield. “He’s a fiery guy and he plays fiery and he puts his body on the line on third downs and I think guys respond to that. It’s authentic to who he is. He’s real with people.
“When he talks to players on the team, you know, he’s always looking out for guys. He’s spending time with the linemen with their linemen dinner. He’s talking to wideouts and he works really hard. So I think everyone just respects his authenticity and his work ethic. The leadership is hard to triangulate, but that’s what I respect about him.
“There’s different ways to do it. Justin Herbert from afar seems like a pretty quiet guy but you truly think he’s a leader. So there’s different ways to do it and it’s not going to be one size fits all. You have to be yourself.”
To make things harder, Mayfield had to accept that the Bucs’ offensive coordinator — former Seattle quarterbacks coach Dave Canales — was a first-time play-caller in the NFL.
Mayfield’s leadership has grown as a result of the time he has spent with new teammates on and off the field.
“He cares. He cares about his guys,” Canales said. “He cares about all of us. He came here and from the jump, he wanted to meet with certain guys and really start to develop the relationship. The chemistry he has with the offensive line — he belongs in that room with those dudes. At the same time, he comes into our QB room and we have a level of conversation in there where we’ve got to kind of talk about everything.
“He’s got that chameleon effect, where he’s able to make his way into any group and being really comfortable in his own skin is a big part of it.
“And then, he’s a guy that bets on himself. At the end of the day, he’s like, ‘Game on the line? I want the ball in my hands. Let’s go.’ That’s his mentality throughout the game.”
The underdog quarterback took over the underdog Bucs, who were picked 31st in some NFL power rankings to start the season. Now they need one win in the final two games to win the division.
“He’s a guy who wants to win and he’s got something to prove,” linebacker Devin White said. “That’s the mentality of this team. Coming into the season, nobody believed in us. We had something to prove. We started winning, proved that we could win. Then we started losing. The ship sank from the outside but it never sank from the inside. Then we started back winning and the ship got bigger and bigger.
“Baker won over the guys by just being him. I always tell him, ‘Give me some more energy! Give me some more energy!’ Because that’s the type of person he is. That trickles down to everybody.”
Mayfield isn’t better than Brady. But for what the Bucs wanted to do, he’s been a perfect fit. Some have even gone so far as to mention Mayfield as a candidate for the Comeback Player of the Year award.
“It’s humbling. It’s an honor,” Mayfield said. “It’s kind of a big-picture mindset. If I take a step back and really look at it, of all the things that I’ve had to weather in the last year, it really speaks volumes to this place right here. To be able to come in and be myself, they’ve allowed me to do that.”
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