‘Hey Baker, are you the starter?’ Bucs’ Bowles hopes battle will supply answer

TAMPA ― The man who will decide the Bucs’ quarterback competition between Baker Mayfield and Kyle Trask on Thursday asked the probing question that only he can answer.

As Mayfield sat down for a media session following the second training camp practice at AdventHealth Training Center, Bowles shouted, ‘Hey Baker, are you the starter?’”

Mayfield smiled broadly and wiped the grin off his face with a white towel.

“I work each day,” Mayfield said. “One day at a time right now.”

But one day during the preseason ― a deadline Bowles says he has in his mind ― the Bucs will declare which quarterback has won the starting position.

Know the candidates

That daily battle, which began in March when the Bucs signed Mayfield to a 1-year, $4 million contract that could be worth as much as $8 million with incentives, is going to determine how the team replaces seven-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady.

On the surface, Mayfield has an enormous advantage in pedigree and production. He was the No. 1 overall pick by the Cleveland Browns in 2018, has thrown for more than 16,000 yards and 100 touchdowns, and has won a playoff game. On the other hand, the Bucs are his fourth team since July 2022, including stints with the Panthers and Rams last season.

Trask, the Bucs’ second-round pick in 2021, had a front-row seat to watch Brady prepare for two seasons. But he was active for only two games and has a career stat line of 3-for-9 passing for 23 yards.

The differences don’t end on the field.

Mayfield is charismatic, outgoing and walks around with a giant chip on his shoulder. Trask is not nearly as demonstrative but possesses a quiet confidence that has served him well during his career as a later bloomer.

“Obviously, I’m a little more outgoing than Kyle, but Kyle is a great guy,” Mayfield said. “So to me, competition always brings out the best in everybody. You want to have somebody pushing you. You want to have somebody who is going to challenge you and brings a different aspect to it.

“And John (Wolford) does that as well. John brings the aspect of knowing that offense we’re installing down to a science almost. So the combination of all three of us, it’s pretty special to see how we’re all working together.”

Rare occurrence

The Bucs haven’t had a true quarterback competition since maybe Josh McCown battled rookie Mike Glennon for the starting job in 2014, the first season under head coach Lovie Smith.

Jameis Winston was suspended by the NFL for the first three games of the 2018 season for inappropriately touching a female Uber driver in March 2016 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Ryan Fitzpatrick started the first four games, and the Bucs went back and forth between him and Winston the rest of the year.

Bowles is no stranger to QB battles. He had one with the New York Jets in 2015 between Fitzpatrick and Geno Smith, who was injured by a teammate during the preseason.

”There’s nothing that can be gained by having a quarterback competition,” Bowles said. “You know that both quarterbacks can throw the football. Throwing the football is just a part of it. The mental part, the aspects of the game, the adjustment part, the audible part and the command part and the things you have to do on the field is a huge part of it, too.

“It’s not just, who threw a touchdown? Who didn’t? Who went 10-for-14 and who went 6-for-15? It’s about how you did it. Sometimes you’ve got to be smart and throw the ball away. You’re not going to get every play. You’ve got to know when to have guts and when to not have guts, and that’s a feel and you see that over time. We understand that, and we’re just taking it day by day.”

The man in charge of this quarterback derby is new offensive coordinator Dave Canales. The former Seahawks quarterbacks coach watched a similar competition between Geno Smith and Drew Lock play out last season. Smith won the job and responded with a career year, passing for 4,282 yards and 30 TDs with 11 interceptions while leading the Seahawks to a 9-8 record.

“I think philosophically for me coming from Seattle, best guy gets the job,” Canales said. “You saw it happen last year firsthand. It was Geno Smith, it was Drew Lock, and it was a true competition. You got a guy who hadn’t played in a long time. You got a guy who had some pretty bad experiences in the recent past with Drew.”

Canales called it a “win-win” when you create a competition.

“Here’s why,” he said. “If you name a starter today, the backup starts thinking like a backup. But if you say, ‘This is a competition … for me what I got out of Drew and Geno was two guys who had to mentally put themselves in a place where ‘I could be, I’m going to be the starter this year.’ They train that way all the way through the last game of the preseason.

“Game 1, I’ve got a starter in Geno and a backup who has been thinking he’s a starter for six months.”

Ignoring expectations

Trask has benefitted this offseason from the increased reps. He’s lost about 10 pounds to become quicker on his feet.

“I think the quarterback room as a whole has done a great job just spinning ideas off each other, and as cliche as it sounds we’re not really competing against each other,” Trask said. “Obviously, on the outside, there’s its own perspective. But ... you just want to compete with yourself and make sure you’re progressing every single day.”

Trask’s role the past two seasons was as the scout squad quarterback, simulating the opponent for the defense. In fact, he never really got any reps with Bucs receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin until the offseason workouts.

“It’s awesome,” Trask said. “I mean, obviously I wasn’t getting any reps with them the first two years. I’ll be honest, I was a little rusty throwing to them. When we got started, I had no timing with them. But now that we’re getting that down, they’re really fun to throw to. ... You can definitely tell why they’re true NFL veterans.”

General manager Jason Licht says he’s enjoying every rep of the QB showdown.

“This is really the first time since I’ve been here, going into year 10, that we have a true quarterback competition,” he said. “And one thing I’m looking forward to is just how hyper-focused we’re going to be during those practices ... just to see who takes the next step forward.”

The NFL pundits don’t like the Bucs’ chances, one picking them as the second-worst team in the league. None of that bothers Mayfield or Trask.

“I’m wired different,” Mayfield said. “I don’t need anybody on the outside to tell me what I can and can’t do. I know what I’m capable of. I got hurt in Cleveland; that’s why my run ended there. And last year was what it was in Carolina. But everything happened for a reason, so I’m here now and ready to go.

“Talking about skeptics and what the narrative is on this team, I think it speaks to our veterans and the people that were a part of the run to the Super Bowl and the success they’ve had recently more so than to me. I’ll always have a chip on my shoulder. That’s how I approach every day. But it’s good to be around a room and a group that’s had success and continue to have that mentality as well. It’s a good fit, but we’re going to write our own story.”

Bowles said he won’t rush to judgment with his quarterbacks. He and his staff will take their time, gather as much information as they can and then evaluate them together, as they do with players at every position.

“We don’t just grade quarterbacks, we grade everybody,” Bowles said. “I can’t come in here off the field and say, ‘Kyle did good,’ or “Baker did good,’ or one thing or the other. I look at the whole practice as its entirety. Probably my fifth or sixth time watching the tape is when we start evaluating positions. We just take notes and kind of see who can do what where and kind of go from there.”

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