The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have a new quarterback, and the general manager that signed him has plenty of thoughts.
[autotag]Baker Mayfield[/autotag] was officially announced as a Buc by the team on Thursday, locking in the former Browns, Panthers and Rams quarterback with a one-year contract worth up to $8.5 million. Naturally, Licht had quite a bit to say about him, and you can check out his thoughts on the new Tampa Bay signal caller below:
“We’ve always, all of us in the front office and the coaches as well … we’ve seen a fiery competitor, very confident, smart, he’s got a very good arm. He’s had a lot of success. He took Cleveland to the playoffs for the [second] time since ’94, when Coach [Bill] Belichick was coaching. That says something. We’re excited to add him to the fray and it’s going to be a great competition. It’s going to be, since I’ve been here, really the real first legit QB competition in training camp, which will be a lot of fun to watch. It’s going to make both of them better. I feel very confident about what [Offensive Coordinator] Dave [Canales] is going to do with the offense and with these quarterbacks. Very exciting.”
That season where Cleveland made the playoffs is by far his best season. He threw 26 touchdowns to eight interceptions and threw for 3,563 yards with 7.3 yards per attempt. Tampa Bay will certainly hope to get that version of Baker Mayfield when he comes to the Bucs, but he’ll have to earn his keep — Licht’s words make it perfectly clear that he will have to beat out Kyle Trask in training camp in order to win the starting job.
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