Baker Mayfield The Coach
November 2nd, 2024
“Liam, are the Glazers going to give me a kickback for coaching up these receivers?”
It appears Baker Mayfield is pulling double duty.
Mayfield is the Bucs’ Pro Bowl quarterback who leads the league in touchdowns thrown entering November.
Who had that on their bingo cards this summer?
But with Mike Evans out for weeks with a hamstring injury, and Chris Godwin likely gone for the season with an ankle injury, the Bucs are turning to largely green-as-grass receivers out of necessity.
Yesterday, Bucs offensive coordinator Liam Coen admitted Mayfield is coaching the receivers up. Whereas before he had nothing to worry about with Evans and Godwin, the rest of the receiver corps, with the exception of Sterling Shepard, has limited experience.
Mayfield, Coen said, is doing what he can to help those receivers along so they can make plays and not get chewed up and spit out by NFL defenses.
“I do think Baker has done a really nice job during the walk-through settings, practice, whatever it is – really trying to be as diligent and detailed as he can without overloading [receivers] minds of where to be, where he needs them, and what he’s looking for on a particular play,” Coen said.
This is the work of a guy who gets it. Just look at Indianapolis where last year’s No. 4 overall pick, Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson, had to tap out on third down claiming he was tired. This enraged former NFL quarterbacks like Joe has never seen.
From Cam Newton to Chase Daniel to Dan Orlovsky and many in-between, former NFL quarterbacks are killing AR-15 for what they consider laziness if not quitting.
Mayfield needs to do extra work with the young receivers? He’s more than willing to pitch in, tired or not from practice and workouts.
If he can help Bucs receivers with one more catch each, that easily could mean the difference between a loss and a win. Mayfield knows that well.
If the receivers look good after help from Mayfield, then Mayfield looks good. If Mayfield looks good, then the Bucs look good. And if the Bucs look good, that probably means sweet victory.
Maybe Mayfield is the anti-AR-15?
November 2nd, 2024 at 1:21 am
stafford regularly meets at 6 am with cooper cup and puca Nakua. Building that chemistry only comes with repetition. Be nice if our gang put in that kind of work ( maybe they do) .
November 2nd, 2024 at 4:35 am
I’m nervous about Evan’s keeping his 1k streak alive this year. It’s really bothering me lately
November 2nd, 2024 at 4:47 am
Good to read in an earlier post here about Cam and others calling Richardson out for being tired. Yes, it is the NFL!
Baker seems to have that strong motivation of being able to reach out to receivers without becoming overbearing. He makes it fun but to the point.
Truly miss Mike and Chris. We all knew Mike was hurt but he kept going in for the team until there was no way he could. Hoping the best of health for the both of them.
November 2nd, 2024 at 5:32 am
ME13 is obviously our most important deep ball threat, and CG14 was our most important short/intermediate threat. Losing BOTH of those guys required a significant modification to our offensive strategy I’m sure. Bucs still produced a very respectable offense last game (432 total yards … 330 yds passing & 102 yds rushing) but we had to do that much differently than in previous games.
o Otton: Cade was targeted 10 times & caught 9 for 81 yds, with 2 TDs & 5 first downs. He looks like Baker’s new ‘go-to-guy’.
o Jarrett: Rakim was targeted 3 times & caught all 3 for 58 yds and 3 first downs. THAT’S IMPRESSIVE.
o McMillan: Jalen was targeted 7 times & caught 4 for 35 yds and 2 first downs. Not bad except for 1 problem: he was targeted deep 3 times; 1 was intercepted & other 2 Incomplete. Good short, but questionable deep.
o Palmer: Trey was targeted only 2 times & caught both of them for 29 yds & 1 first down; Baker threw to him deep once & it was Complete (25 yds). Excellent speed & potential deep threat replacement for Evans?
o Shepard: Sterling was targeted 5 times & caught 3 for 18 yds, 0 TDs & 0 first downs. Baker tried to hit him on 1 deep but it was Incomplete.
o Miller: Ryan was also targeted 5 times & caught 3 for 19 yards, 0 TDs but 2 first downs. Baker threw to him deep once & it was Intercepted.
o White: Rachaad was targeted 6 times & caught 5 for 29 yds, 1 TD & 1 first down. The 1 pass he didn’t catch was a deep pass that was Incomplete.
o Irving: Bucky was targeted 7 times & caught all 7 for 40 yds, 0 TDs & 1 first down. Both of our RBs were extremely impressive in the passing game.
Overall excellent receiving performance by receivers in the short passing game (34-of-40 for 267 … 85%), but not very impressive in the deep passing game (3-of-10 for 63 yds … 30% … with 2 INTs). Personally would look to Palmer more than McMillan for the deep stuff. Jarett probably earned a couple more targets also.
November 2nd, 2024 at 5:57 am
Great overview, DR. Most definitely agree about Jarrett too. He is young (23) and just starting out with more to come from him.
November 2nd, 2024 at 6:59 am
With experience these WR’s will learn if the defensive back has established better position then you are now the defender knock the damn ball down. It is impressive though first how accurate Mayfield is with the short and intermediate throws and second how these players have been able to hang on the these passes. Mayfield tends to come out of the gate throwing absolute fastballs that are hard to handle.
November 2nd, 2024 at 7:06 am
Also I’m trying to find all the fans who said Canales made Mayfield last season. I guess Carolina is finding out the hard way.
November 2nd, 2024 at 7:51 am
2 words – David Moore! I said this repeatedly even in the off season. We already had what I consider our “third receiver” behind Godwin and Evans. David Moore got very few touches with the Bucs but was reliable and explosive, helped us win the playoff game against the Packers. Not re-signing him with my main critique in the offseason. Could have got him on a minimal contract . Canales poached him to Carolina, but it doesn’t look like he’s getting a lot of touches there. Maybe we can get him back? He knows the system, and produced Big Time for the Bucs!
November 2nd, 2024 at 9:24 am
I think the Bucs have the deepest WR room in the league,when the season started, but they lean on the veterans TOO much not giving the young talent enough playing time to blossom!! I wanna see this team lean more on the run game anyway and if Coen allows Baker to throw ANYWHERE NEAR 50 passes a game expect 2+ interceptions per contest! Baker is Baker and having him drop back and pass most of the time is not the strength of this offense🚩🏴☠️🚩☠️🏈‼️
November 2nd, 2024 at 9:26 am
I agree Captain Vic
Dave Moore looked explosive, hungry, angry and tough last week.
He looked like a determined vet. McMillan still looks scared. He’s not ready for the #3 WR spot.
I miss Dave Moore also. He was fast and he played angry!
November 2nd, 2024 at 9:47 am
David Moore would be a great resign. Not sold on McMillan. He seems tentative and at times confused out there.
November 2nd, 2024 at 10:04 am
bucnjim Says:
November 2nd, 2024 at 7:06 am
Also I’m trying to find all the fans who said Canales made Mayfield last season. I guess Carolina is finding out the hard way.
Gino Smith and Baker Mayfield are not leading the league in passing because they are the best QB’s. It is because Smith is on his 3rd season and Mayfield his second implementing what Canales helped them with .
Mayfield, Andy Dalton and Bryce Young all have an average time from snap to release of 2.2 seconds which is about the fastest of all QB’s with any real number of snaps.
Gino holds the ball a little longer @ 2.4 because he is more patient with his progressions and letting plays develop before checking it down to a RB or TE.
Be a shame if one of the games against the Panthers ends up being the final nail come December led by a back up QB or a revitalized Bryce Young.
November 2nd, 2024 at 10:31 am
RBUC … ‘Baker is Baker and having him drop back and pass most of the time is not the strength of this offense🚩🏴☠️🚩☠️🏈‼️’
I agree with you RBuc & can’t figure out why they deviated from that these past 2 games. in our 4 wins we’ve had a run-pass percentage of 44.5% (it was way up to 49% if you disregard our win over the Eagles in which we passed a bunch).
In our 4 losses, we’ve had a run-pass percentage of only 36.6% (we actually ran more against the Falcons in our 1st loss to them than we passed; if you disregard that one our run-pass percentage in our other 3 losses was only 33%).
That’s a sizeable difference IMO. We were more ‘balanced’ in our attack when we won. Not only that, but Baker’s thrown 4 INTs in our 4 wins (and 3 of those happened in the Saints’ game win), but he’s thrown 5 INTs in our 4 losses (4 of those in our last 2 losses). Hoping that we can ‘get ahead early & stay ahead’ so that we can use a more balanced attack, and hopefully that’ll minimize Baker’s newfound propensity to throw INTs (fewer passes? less pressing?).
November 2nd, 2024 at 11:45 am
Now have Baker start coaching the defensive backs and maybe there’s a chance. The fraud who runs the defense (into the ground) has proven it’s impossible for the current staph.
November 2nd, 2024 at 3:25 pm
Baker is doing exactly what Baker is supposed to be doing at this point in his career.
Obviously the offense changes without Mike and Chris but details, chemistry, confidence with the young guys can/will make a huge difference going forward.
I’ve got confidence that Baker and Liam will do what they need to in order to get production from our recievers. Our offense needs to keep scoring 30+ per game.