Buckyneers.com And Baker Mayfield’s “Stud” Comments
August 24th, 2024
Joe was intrigued to learn that the website domain “Buckyneers.com” instantly directs readers to a page devoted to rookie running back Bucky Irving on the Buccaneers’ official website.
That means it’s likely that the team purchased the domain.
Smart marketing planning? Perhaps. But was there any football insight into the decision?
Joe has written many times about how comments this year from Todd Bowles and others seem to reflect a strong skepticism in running back Rachaad White’s game when he takes a handoff.
Irving, however, has drawn consistent praise. And he’s lived up to the love in preseason.
At 5-9, 192 pounds, Irving runs with authority and a relentless drive. There’s no slow dancing in his game but he does have quick feet and can dazzle in tight spaces.
Bucs icon Rondé Barber talked on last night’s preseason game broadcast about how beloved Irving is across the organization. Hmmm, not the usual chatter for a rookie backup(?) running back, a fourth-round draft pick with a somewhat reserved personality.
Joe’s flash poll this afternoon even showed Bucs fans are sold on Irving as the team’s best rushing back.
Last night, it felt like Baker Mayfield let it all hang out in his praise of Irving. While Joe can’t capture Mayfield’s tone of voice in print, it said a lot.
“Bucky’s a stud,” Mayfield said. “You know, similar type back as Rachaad where he’s able to catch the ball out of the backfield, really athletic, smooth. But, it’s just, he’s fun to watch when he sticks his toe in the ground and decides to run north and south. He’s an explosive guy. He’s tough, man. He’s really tough.”
Those footsteps White might be hearing around turning into a freight train.
Joe is not taking Irving’s side in some sort of exclusive battle. The more good running backs the better, and White certainly has dangerous skills.
Joe just wants the best player to handle the football. If that spawns new “Buckyneers” fans, then so be it.
August 24th, 2024 at 2:28 pm
Sean Tucker will be the starter before the season ends.
August 24th, 2024 at 2:41 pm
Joe is not taking Irving’s side in some sort of exclusive battle.
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LOL! Yeah, this Joe is fair and balanced when it comes to White and hasn’t written at least 300 articles bashing him in the last year.
I like what I’ve seen so far from Bucky, I think his skills will translate well to Sundays – but White isn’t going anywhere and we’ll get to see another 300 articles bashing him over the next 365 days.
August 24th, 2024 at 2:46 pm
I don’t think White is gonna get a thousand yards this year either, unless he can do it in far fewer carries than he got last year
August 24th, 2024 at 2:52 pm
The primary difference is we have seen that Bucky runs hard through the LOS. Rachaad has previously been tentative or danced to the LOS. Hopefully with the offensive line upgrades and a better scheme it will improve Rachaad’s game. That way the Bucs can carry a two headed monster instead of one over the other.
August 24th, 2024 at 3:00 pm
Probably the only thing I agree with Rod Munch on – lol.
@Joe said – “Joe has written many times about how comments this year from Todd Bowles and others seem to reflect a strong skepticism in running back Rachaad White’s game when he takes a handoff.”
I have yet to see a comment from Todd and others, quoted by Joe, that actually says that. It’s all “reading between the lines” and conjecture ie.. gossip/fantasy.
Joe can say he “just wants the best player to handle the football” but the articles he’s written and comments he’s made tell a very different story. Really can’t understand why it’s so hard to get that rooting for the best possible play at the position isn’t about rooting for one player to suck. –Joe
I think we greatly improved the RB room and OL. Bucky’s great, Tuckers looked good. Rachaad is still our top dog in the backfield tho – until we see a LOT MORE than we have up til now.
August 24th, 2024 at 3:00 pm
Rooting for him. He runs tough for his size, but man I hope his frame can take a full NFL season.
August 24th, 2024 at 3:10 pm
You obviously haven’t been paying attention. Joe go back and look at what Bowles said the past two Sundays.
Then there was the stunt earlier in training camp where he (or Coen) had White running — with the third team.
August 24th, 2024 at 3:15 pm
Baker really said a lot of great things about Bucky and Rachaad too. I am all in being part of the Buckyneers club too! Almost sounds like Mouseketeers! Loving it. Go Bucky Go!!
August 24th, 2024 at 3:21 pm
Breaking tackles is still allowed – right Joe?
Joes vote goes to Bucky.
August 24th, 2024 at 3:23 pm
Hopefully we can get a running game like Miami’s with Mostert and Achane, both getting plenty of work and great performance…that only helped their explosive passing game last year!!
LFG!!
August 24th, 2024 at 3:39 pm
White had second most carries last year and couldn’t get 1000. Not all of that is on the online. Dead last 2 years in a row and we have made the playoffs if we can get top 15 maybe we can start getting some respect from around the league.
August 24th, 2024 at 3:40 pm
Whoever gives us the potent rushing attack we need to take the stress off baker I don’t care and hopefully it’s all three. We’ll see how Bucky feels after 17 weeks of grown men trying to obliterate him when it touches the rock. Little bit more intense than college and preseason. If white and even rojo were talking about the need to bulk up in the offseason he’ll be no different.
August 24th, 2024 at 3:43 pm
Anyone can buy that domain and redirect to Bucky’s page on the official site. Hmmm, maybe I’ll buy letsbake.com
August 24th, 2024 at 3:48 pm
@GoneGator:
I’ve never heard Bowles praise Rachaad for his running, or rarely. You hear things like “we” have to hit the holes harder or “we” have to be more decisive. Ra White took 90% of the carries last year. You don’t have to read between the lines.
August 24th, 2024 at 4:04 pm
“You obviously haven’t been paying attention. Joe go back and look at what Bowles said the past two Sundays.”
I’ve watched every press conference Todd has given this year. I’ve yet to hear him ACTUALLY say anything negative about RW. Praising Bucky for hitting holes and not being hesitant is only a put down aimed at Rachaad in the mind of people looking for that.
If McMillan gets praise is that “shade” thrown at CG? If Todd praises his hands is that a dig at Mike, who’s been known to drop a few?
Rachaad accounted for OVER 1500 yards last year behind 3 linemen and 2 traffic comes with Canales calling plays. Bucky has accounted for what exactly? Against backups, with a greatly improved OL and superior run scheme.
All about the Bucky love but tired of the RW hate. 🤷🏼
August 24th, 2024 at 4:11 pm
While his YPC was abysmal, he was only 10 yard short of 1k.
And he could have gotten the 1k yards if he wanted, but on 2 different occasions he stopped running to kneel down and run out the clock, rather than pad his own stats (one of those times it would have been for a touchdown too).
That’s a team-first mentality and there’s nothing wrong with that.
August 24th, 2024 at 4:14 pm
Maybe White will take the hint and run a little harder this year. Maybe the better blocking in the middle will give him more confidence. Bucky isn’t really big enough to be the feature back in my opinion. It won’t take long for us to see when the games start. With Irving and Tucker waiting in the wings he had better earn his keep
August 24th, 2024 at 4:19 pm
With the way the game has evolved, you need two backs to shoulder the number of Carrie’s and protect your RB’s from wear & tear. Sean Tucker has also proven himself. This team will utilize all 3 backs this season. White has experience and is great in the pass game, but hasn’t proven himself as a real RB1. Bucky is a rookie, but loaded with talent and energy, kind of more run-centric that also has that pass component, and Sean is just a great balanced back that deels like he’s about to break out. If you have an injury – your balanced offense isn’t going to go down in flames.
I like what the Bucs have done at RB.
August 24th, 2024 at 4:24 pm
He was my small and shifty choice…Estime my other choice if we went bigger, but we already had big in White, not Henry huge, but big. Im rewatching the game amd thinking Johnson makes it as our 4th.
White/Bucky, Tucker/Johnson
August 24th, 2024 at 4:28 pm
It is a long season, we will need all 3 RBs before it is said and done.
August 24th, 2024 at 4:30 pm
Bics have an excellent trio of RB’s.
August 24th, 2024 at 4:30 pm
The number of yards for the season may be important for the individual players but it’s irrelevant for the team. What IS important is average yards per carry and YAC.
With the upgraded O-line, and upgraded OC, I predict all 3 RBs will be over 4.0 yards per carry. As long as their pass protection is OK, I believe any of the 3 have enough talent to be the starter.
August 24th, 2024 at 4:36 pm
For the 1st time in a long time, We have 3 awesome RBS.
August 24th, 2024 at 4:37 pm
A couple of the “great teams” have 3 headed monsters. We may be developing our own with White, Bucky, and the much-improved Sean Tucker.
August 24th, 2024 at 4:58 pm
The criticism of the Bucs run game and the play calling of the Bucs’ Offensive Coordinators in recent years has been harsh and unrelenting.
I want to see the Bucs win every game. But, sometimes, the expedient play calling that might win a game might not be the play calling that builds a championship team.
I recently rewatched the Bucs’ Super Bowl victory against the Chiefs.
With Marpet and Jensen, Smith and Wirth, Stinnie and Gronkowski; with Fournette and RoJo; that run game was vicious and often dominating.
But, as I recall, the season did not begin with that dominating run game. Arians and Leftwich stuck to a scheme to build that championship winning attack that they were determined to have – even when it meant losing some games along the way that switching to another scheme might have won.
Since then, the Bucs have remained committed to that championship winning scheme. But, they lost Marpet and Jensen, and Fournette, and Gronkowski.
It hasn’t worked.
They have tried plugging the gaps and sticking to it with the personnel they had, but that failed. (I like Trask. But, I thought then and I think now that the pick needed to be used on the OL.)
Reportedly, Bowles went to Licht and told him that they needed to reload personnel wise.
You can criticize the Bucs for not going “win now” and abandoning their scheme to try to eke out more wins with the available personnel. Or, you can respect there commitment to building the offense that they seem to be determined to have.
Yes, the new OC is adding some new elements to the offense that should improve the Bucs running game by making it less predictable.
But, the personnel reloads at OL and RB seem to be intended to rebuild that vicious and dominating attack that won the Super Bowl. The attack that was so powerful that the Bucs could and would pound the rock somewhat predictably until the other teams were feeling the hurt. Few things are as demoralizing to a defense as knowing generally what is coming and getting beaten anyway. Then, when you are selling out to stop the relentless grind, you get scorched with a chunk play down the field. A couple of quarters like that, and many a defense is whupped, and you just keep grinding.
From the outside, it looks to me like this year the Bucs are well on the way to rebuilding a key element of a championship winning team.
August 24th, 2024 at 5:01 pm
Bucs goal is to have experienced options for next yr when White hits free agency. Bucs won’t have to overspend on a position that’s no longer valued, especially when you got Irving AND Tucker ready to step in. I think we could see the same with Godwin. If the young guys prove capable, why pay top dollar on Godwin? He’ll be nearing 30, he’s got a lot of mileage…..just seems like the team is preparing to let some guys walk.
August 24th, 2024 at 5:01 pm
What about a three-headed monster? Is that asking for too much?
August 24th, 2024 at 5:03 pm
I believe the consensus is yes.
August 24th, 2024 at 5:05 pm
Competition makes everybody better. All 3 of these rbs made plays this preseason. With a 17 game season it isn’t completely ridiculous to speculate that 2 of these guys will rush for 1000+. Yes, there you have it. I drank the whole pitcher of koolaide and think this emphasis on the running game is going to pay big dividends.
August 24th, 2024 at 5:13 pm
Depth in the RB room is what we needed and seemingly what we have received. No more Keyshawn Vaughn to stink the room up, a definite better Sean Tucker who has yet to reach his peak and a stud, as Baker put it, with Bucky. I don’t see the problem here. This is a good thing and I think the fact that they are very similar in style is also a great opportunity to be more versatile on offense.
August 24th, 2024 at 5:22 pm
All three looked better than we have seen in a while. Have to wait to pass judgment until we see them in a real game against other starters.
August 24th, 2024 at 5:52 pm
I’m excited about our RB room for sure.
With regards to Mayfield calling him a “stud”, go look at how many other players he has also called studs in the past year or so.
August 24th, 2024 at 6:36 pm
Three good running backs? Well, yeah.
August 24th, 2024 at 7:08 pm
Why do u jokers nit pick certain players they r all on the sMe team shut u r pie hole & make meaningful post stop the bash unless u r really not bucs fans if not get TFO this site we r lucky to have R.white.i always thought it was funny when a black guy has last name white how the heck did that come about or vise versa white guy with last name black
August 24th, 2024 at 7:19 pm
So we are banging the drum for Bucky but not considering that White has not had the same opportunity behind the same line in PRESEASON?
I suspect we all know which person wrote this article.
Very passionate on how worthless these preseason games are, but also slobbing over a new RB who is going against future Amazon drivers ECT as this site would say.
Step up the quality of these articles or just have the save write more. Geez
August 24th, 2024 at 7:24 pm
I’m not going to address anyone who’s name is one of the writers of this site (love the sage) but if one of the writers would lay off the sauce me may get better quality articles.
August 24th, 2024 at 7:39 pm
What a difference a year makes Sean Tucker. If you visit this site I hope this is the first year. You don’t want to know what was said about you last preseason
August 24th, 2024 at 7:46 pm
Alcohol IS a DRUG.
Maybe try some bong rips instead. Much less harmful 🙂
August 24th, 2024 at 8:19 pm
go bucky go…
run bucky run…
score bucky score…
August 24th, 2024 at 8:21 pm
Dolphins are saying the Bucs only had 2 of their starters out and the Dolphins only had 2 starters in the game. Claiming the Bucs could barely beat their backups. I’m not sure how true this way but it did throw a wet blanket on my enthusiasm. I get that our starters were only in for one drive on O and D. But I thought the phins had most of their starters in during the first drives. I knew they held back their Qb.
August 24th, 2024 at 8:22 pm
rachaad is rb1 rn…
come on………….gotta see how he looks for some extended time behind this more matured and stouter line…
and we’ve got 2 guys behind him that currently look more than capable if things start to stall out a bit
August 24th, 2024 at 8:44 pm
And of course they look more capable going against backups. But hey, RW1 sucks!
August 24th, 2024 at 8:57 pm
A split seems likely
August 24th, 2024 at 9:37 pm
The bucs fidna get Buck Nasty….
August 24th, 2024 at 10:54 pm
In that 1st screen pass to White, he showed that he runs away from contact and has absolutely no short space awareness to create more yards. I always say look at his eyes, there’s no dawg in him. Haven’t had a chance to see much of Bucky but give me a running back with heart and instincts and can catch the ball too! Tucker has pretty decent vision too. Before long White might end up the 3rd down back.
August 24th, 2024 at 11:13 pm
Watching hard knocks and getting jealous. Caleb Williams is the real deal. It’s looking like the Bears finally got themselves a franchise Qb. Have they ever had a great Qb? McMahon & Harbough were good but either great.
August 24th, 2024 at 11:57 pm
stan that’s awesome…lol…from watching a tv show you’ve concluded a player is the real deal…a tv show stan, a tv show…!
please stan……..let’s see how it goes between the white lines on sundays before the verdict is out on said dude
August 25th, 2024 at 1:20 am
Stainglassman— Sid Luckman!
August 25th, 2024 at 8:58 am
“Really can’t understand why it’s so hard to get that rooting for the best possible play at the position isn’t about rooting for one player to suck. –Joe”
Maybe it is your (written) inflection on this and other topics? WE ALL WANT ONLY THE BEST PLAYERS, TO CARRY, THROW, CATCH, KICK THE FOOTBALL. Kind of like the “inflection” of ” America’s QB” the “Savior”….
But you know this you are a Journalist/Blogger, right?
Glad we have White, Bucky, Tucker in our RB room.
GO!!!!!BUCS!!!!!
August 25th, 2024 at 9:36 am
I like all 3 RB’s . Think Bucky and Sean showed some good tape this preseason. I also believe Bucky is a stick you foot in the dirt and run North and South where White dances too much sometimes. But to be fair White had had Defenders in the Backfield before he gets the handoff with this O-Line the last two years. This year should be a HUGR improvement.
August 25th, 2024 at 10:12 am
White had a run on Friday, believe it was his second carry, where if he cuts right he probably gets 20+ yards, but he cut left and ended up with 4.
He does seem to suffer from poor vision sometimes.
August 25th, 2024 at 12:05 pm
Joe, you are entitled to your opinion. That said, RW1 is the starter until he’s not. IMHO, come December he’ll still be the #1 and over 1000 yards too. BI7 and ST44 will get their share of snaps and yardage too. This could be the year of greatness coming out of the backfield! Seeing is believing!
August 25th, 2024 at 12:07 pm
Dave Pear, I also noticed that.
August 25th, 2024 at 1:41 pm
These joes print only to get clicks no matter how outlandish the substance. They slobber all over Barton but didnt want to draft him in the 1st round. They purposely try to control the practice narrative to stir up Baker and Trask supporters for the sole purpose of getting clicks. Joes personal vendetta against White is outlandish.. Tucker played worse than white last year do you think maybe our horrible oline had anything to do with that… We have all read joes loving man crush comments about Hainsey. Makes one wonder
August 25th, 2024 at 5:07 pm
There is nothing wrong with recognizing the skills or deficiencies in comparing Irvin to White. Unless you are blind and didn’t watch Bucky, he cuts better, he spins/jukes better to avoid tackles and his lower center of gravity makes him harder to find behind blockers. He isn’t going to run people over but he is much shiftier than White.
Certainly White is an elite receiving back. His catch radius is bigger than Irvin’s and he is a big target for Baker to see. Once he catches it he does make tacklers miss in space. He also can be very physical after the catch. As a receiver he will punish dbs.
August 25th, 2024 at 11:21 pm
White vs Irving is not a binary decision. They are both going to get significant playing time in 24. White earned the starting role in 23 with his overall play, but most starters are on short leashes when their backups start outplaying them – especially running backs. The snaps will probably be divided about 60/30/10 between White, Irving, and Tucker in the early season, but if Irving can continue to run, block, and catch as he has, then his snap count will increase and he could become the starter. Who cares as long as the run game improves enough to supercharge the pass game!
August 26th, 2024 at 7:03 am
There are intangibles, like vision, and toughness, and live football speed with running backs that tend to really show up as the regular season begins. From what I’ve seen so far, Bucky is looking good running the ball. We really will see what he’s got soon. I’m stoked.