Baker Mayfield “On The Clock For Four Weeks”
May 22nd, 2023
Todd Bowles and a short leash.
News Channel 8 sports chief Dan Lucas is best known to Bucs fans as the preseason sideline reporter for WFLA-TV, and as the guy who sits down to interview the Tampa Bay head coach every week during football season.
Joe also knows Lucas as a great guy and a skilled raconteur with well-informed Bucs takes.
So Joe was very intrigued to hear Lucas say with conviction that he believes Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield is on a four-week trial to start the 2023 season. If it doesn’t go well, then here comes the Week 5 bye and a likely handoff to fellow quarterback Kyle Trask.
Lucas went there last week during a WFLA Now chat about all things Bucs.
“I don’t know if record matters, but that is Baker Mayfield’s résumé. That is him on the clock for four weeks. And the Week 5 bye week, if it’s not working, then we could see Kyle Trask. That’s where you would make that move,” Lucas said.
Joe has written and said this in other ways, primarily based on Joe’s presumed perspective of Todd Bowles.
If Bowles opens the season with Trask as his starter and it doesn’t work before a switch to Trask, then Joe believes Bowles looks like a clown coach who couldn’t see that a veteran was better than a guy who never started a game.
But if Mayfield gets the Week 1 call, and then fails and Bowles switches to Trask, then the perception is Mayfield was washed up and Bowles just played the cards he was dealt.
Joe does not expect Mayfield to implode through the first four weeks of the season, assuming he wins the starting job.
However, the Lucas premise makes a lot of sense. Mayfield has to look like he’s progressing in the new offense, and the Bucs won’t be extremely patient if he’s not.
May 22nd, 2023 at 5:46 pm
So….what is imploding?……0-4 for sure…..what about 1-3…….maybe….depends on the games…..if our defense performs well and Mayfield & the offense stinks….there you go.
I’m good going with Trask at that point……Trask will have one more year on his contract after this year and he can backup our new QB in 23.
Or…..if he plays really well….he might get a contract extention.
May 22nd, 2023 at 6:03 pm
WHY???
So if Mayfield plays mediocre we have another middle of the 1st round draft pick, not good enough to grab a game changing QB? And we can give Mayfield a bloated contract?
Makes ZERO sense to start Baker Mayfield. Trask has all the upside. If Trask flops then you draft the next QB. If he succeeds then you have another year left on his rookie deal. It’s not rocket science. Clearly the Bucs know this.
May 22nd, 2023 at 6:09 pm
Start Trask.
Lol!
May 22nd, 2023 at 6:11 pm
I have a weird suggestion. Just give the started job to the to the QB who performs the best, during training camp.
Make no sense to reinvent the wheel.
May 22nd, 2023 at 6:18 pm
All the faith in the world, this’ll be a good team. High hopes
May 22nd, 2023 at 6:19 pm
Just another talking head taking a wild guess. What head coach makes team decisions based on what other people outside of the team will think, if the decision doesn’t go well?
Anyway, they would look smarter if they started their second round pick and made the journeyman his backup.
May 22nd, 2023 at 6:20 pm
The Beer Whisperer is old school. Sound advice.
May 22nd, 2023 at 6:21 pm
Sounds like Mayfield is going to be the starter , so no real competition like Bowles said it was? How can Lucas say Mayfield is on a four week probation if he isn’t guaranteed to start?
May 22nd, 2023 at 6:23 pm
I wish he just got to see Trask all year, since that’s the best way to get the #1 pick in 2024 — and if I’m wrong, and he’s a good QB, then fantastic, you got your future QB, and the team would then likely be fun to watch.
Instead we’ll see Mayfield go 4-7, then Trask will go 1-4, and then just to lose ourselves draft position, in week 17 we’ll bring back Josh Johnson, the last guy in the NFL to wear the Bucs orange and white jersey in 2010, and he can lead us to a victory and cost the Bucs like 3 spots in the draft.
May 22nd, 2023 at 6:41 pm
Baker has had some good NFL games. But they have gotten few, and far between.
I know what I’m talking about. I’ve watched over 90% of his games, easily.
It don’t take a “Rocket Surgeon” to see good from bad.
If he plays great, I’m all for it. But he should not be, just handed the keys, imo
May 22nd, 2023 at 6:43 pm
Makes sense. If Baker doesn’t work out we also need to know if Trask is capable.
Joe are you allowed at the OTA’s starting tomorrow?
May 22nd, 2023 at 7:00 pm
We should trade for Mr. Entertainment. I miss the heated debate between Joe and the homies.
May 22nd, 2023 at 7:46 pm
I believe Kyle Trask will start the season. Otherwise it’s a wasted draft pick. The ” quarterback competition” will just determine the length of the leash. If he 💩 on himself then you put in Baker for the rest of the year and see if he can earn that bonus money. If Trask does well, you roll with him.
May 22nd, 2023 at 7:47 pm
Beer whiper’s comment is right on regarding Trask and the competition. The first few games (I am not thinking “season” yet) should be extremely interesting IMO. We don’t know who is going to QB. We don’t know if Canales will be any better than LeftW (altho he talks much better and his attitude is a joy). We don’t know for sure how Wirfs will do on the left. We don’t know how our new draft will look (or in fact, some of our players from the last draft. We don’t know if Todd spent any time learning to correct his deficiencies. We should at least find the first few games VERY interesting–then I may have firm expectations about the season.
May 22nd, 2023 at 7:49 pm
0 and 4 after four.
May 22nd, 2023 at 8:05 pm
This is the most probable outcome. Let Baker deal with the growing pains early. Bring Trask up to speed and let him get at least half a season under his belt. I dont see an early implosion, but I can see the desire to get Trask on the field sooner than later.
May 22nd, 2023 at 8:08 pm
I do think Mayfly will be anointed as the season starter on the excuse of him being “experienced”.
What happens later is going to be because of what happens in camp. If Trask has a good or great camp, then Mayfly is expendable if he sucks eggs and do not get to 2-2 before the break.
I still believe that Trask will be an above average NFL QB, the question might be where.
May 22nd, 2023 at 8:14 pm
All of you saying “we need to see what Trask is capable of”… the coached have watched him for 3 years now, every day in practice. He’s not magically gonna get better in a game than he is in practice. They know what they have. That may be good or bad, we’ll see after the pre-season and see who starts. But make no mistake, they’ve seen enough to know what they have.
May 22nd, 2023 at 8:42 pm
None of this BS makes any sense at all. If they are all lying and there really is no quarterback competition, that makes Bowles look vastly worse, if the result is the Bucs fall flat on their faces before the bye. If Trask really is the better quarterback(who knows?), then depriving him of those first four starts terribly hurts his experience and the benefit of taking real snaps. And also puts the Bucs in a deep hole from which they probably will not recover … because Trask still has to climb the learning curve with actual starts.
Look, none of us, and especially JBF has no freaking idea who is going to win the starters job. But whoever does win the starters job had damn well be the better quarterback, and not simply be anointed because he has more experience, or somehow fits someone’s biased opinion.
JBF really needs to just STFU about his endless biased speculations on who will be the better quarterback … and let the chips fall where they may. Ditto for all Bucs fans.
That’s why they play the games,
May 22nd, 2023 at 8:51 pm
Yeah let Baker go 1- 3 then hope Trask can save the day. Makes sense.
May 22nd, 2023 at 9:11 pm
I don’t think Mayfield is on that short of a leash. I mean, if he’s absolute garbage, then yeah, the bye week would be a good time to start prepping Trask… But seriously, it would have to be awful for them to have such a quick hook and go with a QB that has only completed 3 passes in an NFL game.
May 22nd, 2023 at 9:18 pm
Mayfield is a tad better than.500….he’s much like Bowles, 9-8…8-9…middle of the road.
May 22nd, 2023 at 9:25 pm
This confirms what I’ve bin thinking and that this is NOT really a QB competition at all. It’s bakers job. Trask never really gets a chance. Total BS. We have all seen what baker can do and it’s not much. Rather see what we got in trask when he has an actually starters in the game.
May 22nd, 2023 at 9:34 pm
‘Bowles looks like a clown coach.’
That is all that needed to be typed!
May 22nd, 2023 at 10:06 pm
I am shocked that it was not just four preseason games.
May 22nd, 2023 at 10:09 pm
Trask is Licht’s pick. This is Licht’s team. Bowles works for Licht. Trask has been groomed by the GOAT. Mayfield is mediocre at best. Do the math
May 22nd, 2023 at 10:30 pm
This feels like the Byron “Sluggo” Leftwich vs. Luke McCown QB competition.
Giant Douche vs. Turd Sandwich
May 22nd, 2023 at 10:48 pm
These Baker haters slay me. If someone really watched 90% of his games they would know that Baker is quite capable of very good play. No QB can play when the coaching staff is out to lunch. He came in to a 1-33 team, behind on Thursday Nite football, NO 1st team reps, and WON the game. He had the BROWNS in the playoffs 2 years later. Baker plays with the biggest heart and most underrated talent of any QB. I’m starting to think that Tampa has already thought that Baker-Bashing is the ticket. That’s sad. Why don’t you guys go to the beach and leave the football to the real FANS.
May 22nd, 2023 at 10:55 pm
Unless Baker gets off to a hot start, priority for Team Glazer is to find out what they have in Kyle Trask. They didnt pay Baker $2 million a year to be our starter while they pay almost the same amount of money to let a second round pick never see playing time. Not saying Trask is the answer, but the team cant take stock of his skills unless he plays. Because of Bowles lack of success last year, there was little chance for Trask to get any mop up time. Todd will be paying the piper this season and will reap the consequences.
May 22nd, 2023 at 11:26 pm
Fire Bowles today
May 22nd, 2023 at 11:26 pm
@The Beer Whisperer, you had the best solution above. Start with the QB who plays better in the preseason. Let’s have a real competition which is what was said would happen.
Baker has much more experience, that IS true. But experience is not what should be the determining factor. Whoever plays better should be the way the QBs are judged.
Make it a real competition as we were told it would be. That will bring out the best of both.
May 22nd, 2023 at 11:52 pm
They’ll determine if Trask is ready in the preseason. If he isn’t, Baker is there. I’m sure the team would rather have a young QB that can get better each week.
What’s the best thing that can happen with Baker? He plays well and is immediately too expensive to keep. So you are back to square one next season.
But you can’t just mail in 2023 with a rookie (effectively) QB and get your all-pro receivers killed. So I think it is Trask’s job to lose, but he’ll only have to preseason to prove it to the coaches and his teammates.
It is easy to dog Trask with no real experience to know what we can do, but he played and won in the SEC, has size and a big arm… I still think he beats out Baker and lands the long term contract here.
May 23rd, 2023 at 12:24 am
Even if you develop into an elite NFL QB with multiple SB wins, the first ten to twenty starts usually do not go so well. There are exceptions like Brock Purdy or Dak Prescott or Russell Wilson, but they are the exceptions not the rule. I have a hard time remembering the numbers, but I think Troy Aikman went 0-11 with the Cowboys in his 1st season, and Peyton Manning went 3-13 with the Colts, and let’s not forget the QB who is still learning how to spell cat even after his 4 SB wins, Terry Bradshaw. Bradshaw threw 6 TDs and 24 INTs his 1st season with the Steelers. That is absolutely comical! Now Kyle Trask aint no rookie, but really he is a rookie. What is it?—9 whole pass attempts with 3 completions?, never able to displace Gabbert for number 2? Trask can replace Mayfield early on, and the smart money would say the Bucs are virtually guaranteed an overall number one pick. But, I agree with the inside info Dan Lucas got. Baker is on a short leash. Whatever the metric is, the Bucs have to pull him if he’s lost his winning ways. My metric would be (and I would let Baker know right up front): Dude, the day this team drops 2 games under .500 you are number 2 behind Trask!
May 23rd, 2023 at 6:16 am
Bucs will start whichever QB performs the best in the preseason or risk a QB controversy that does nothing but divide a team.
May 23rd, 2023 at 6:36 am
“Lucas says with conviction that he believes …”
So, he has no evidence for it. Great story, Joe. /s
May 23rd, 2023 at 6:46 am
Once again, what the Bucs did in the draft – when Kyle Trask was the only quarterback on the roster – tells us what they think of Trask. They passed on Will Levis and Hendon Hooker in the first two rounds, and did not draft a quarterback in any round. There is no way the Bucs do that if they held the views espoused by Joe and others on this FSU website. Clearly, the Bucs like and are comfortable with Trask. And, I am convinced they brought in Mini Mayfield solely as a backup to Trask.
May 23rd, 2023 at 7:33 am
BucsFanSince1976 Says:
May 23rd, 2023 at 6:16 am
Bucs will start whichever QB performs the best in the preseason or risk a QB controversy that does nothing but divide a team.
BBQBUC Says:
May 23rd, 2023 at 6:36 am
“Lucas says with conviction that he believes …”
So, he has no evidence for it. Great story, Joe. /s
——————————————————————————
I hope that Lucas DOESN’T have evidence for what he believes and that that’s not something he heard from Bowles in an off-the-record conversation.
IF the players were assured that there would be a competition (as Bucs fans have been) when there is no intention to make it a real competition that is playing with fire. It CAN divide the team as you wrote above @BucsFanSince1976.
I know many here don’t believe that Trask doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of winning the competition but we really don’t know until he has a chance to play with the 1st team offense.
Even many scouts misjudge how a QB is going to perform in games until they actually have a chance to play in a game. That’s why the GOAT didn’t get drafted until the 6th round.
May 23rd, 2023 at 7:35 am
^^^^^My post above is a bit grammatically challenged.
That’s what I get for trying to post before my caffeine level is up to save levels.
I’m going to get coffee now! 😉
May 23rd, 2023 at 7:39 am
Just what I’ve been saying. If Mayfield doesn’t win at least 2 of the first 4 games, use the bye to give Task a fair chance. If he does well, we have our QB of the future. If he sucks, we have a high draft pick to try again.
May 23rd, 2023 at 7:44 am
Johnny Manziel will be playing for y’all by week 10…you heard it here first….lol
May 23rd, 2023 at 8:02 am
With Bowels, who knows ?