Category: Bucs

Buccaneers, Baker Mayfield near three-year, $100M contract

The Buccaneers and Baker Mayfield agree to agree on a massive contract

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers took care of Mike Evans last week. Now, they have the quarterback who can feed the elite wideout passes.

Reports on Sunday — that were confirmed by Baker Mayfield — detail the QB getting a three-year, $100 million contract with the NFC South team.

Half of the money is guaranteed.

Pretty good money for a guy who had been bouncing around from team to team until landing in Tampa last season.

Mayfield was 9-8 last season and threw for 4,044 yards and 28 touchdowns in leading the Bucs to the NFC South title.

Lions have no answer for Mike Evans all game

Mike Evans was dominating the Lions’ secondary

Baker Mayfield went to his favorite target on Sunday with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers down 14 points.

Mike Evans responded as he had all day against the Detroit Lions.

The elite wideout caught a 16-yard pass with 4:37 left in the game to bring Tampa Bay back within 31-23.

The two-point conversion failed as the Bucs tried to get within six so they could win the game with a PAT if they could score another TD.

Evans had seven catches for 142 yards at that point.

Baker Mayfield beats blitz, throws TD pass to Rachaad White

The Lions and Bucs headed to the fourth quarter tied at 17

The Detroit Lions dialed up a blitz and Baker Mayfield and the Tampa Bay  Buccaneers had the perfect call to beat it.

Mayfield threw a short pass to Rachaad White, who rolled into the end zone from 12 yards out.

After the PAT, the NFC Divisional Round game on Sunday at Ford Field headed to the fourth quarter tied at 17.

C.J. Gardner-Johnson hands interception back to Baker Mayfield

Lions defensive back C..J. Gardner-Johnson, who had some things to say about Baker Mayfield this week, handed his interception back to Mayfield.

Apparently, Detroit Lions defensive back C.J. Gardner-Johnson watched enough tape this week. The contentious defender, who made headlines this week with some less-than-complimentary comments about Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield (to which Mayfield responded that Gardner-Johnson needed to watch more game tape) picked Mayfield off with 11:21 left in the first quarter. Mayfield was trying to hit receiver Mike Evans, and Evans had some hands issues here.

This was not the only time early in the game that a Buccaneers player had issues catching the ball — on the drive after the interception, cornerback Jamel Dean dropped a sure-fire interception from Jared Goff in the end zone. The Lions kicked a field goal to go up 3-0 after that.

Baker Mayfield must calm his rogue tendencies to have a chance against the Lions

If Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers are going to beat the Lions, Mayfield will have to stay within himself as he didn’t in Week 6.

Baker Mayfield is on his fourth NFL team since 2021, which is an odd place for a former No. 1 overall NFL pick to find himself just seven seasons into his NFL career. One reason Mayfield has traveled an arduous road from the Cleveland Browns to the Carolina Panthers to the Los Angeles Rams to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers is the randomness of his play that can show up too often at the worst possible time. As great as Mayfield can be in the right situation with a coaching staff who can control his rogue tendencies, he’s a finely-tuned machine with a couple of oddly-placed springs, and you just have to live with it.

Buccaneers offensive coordinator Dave Canales has done an outstanding job with that this season, which is a primary reason that the Bucs are in Detroit to play the Lions in the NFC divisional round. Canales has a lot

In that 20-6 Detroit win, Mayfield completed 19 of 37 passes for 206 yards, no touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 56.8. It was probably his worst game of the season. Mayfield was frequently speeding up in the pocket whether he was hurried or not. He didn’t throw with good base fundamentals, and he threw off-platform more than he needed to, which led to a lot of incompletions against tight coverage. More worrisome were the incompletions in which his receivers had scalded Detroit’s defense. 

Mayfield had a wide-open shot to Trey Palmer with 2:00 left in the first half that he overthrew by a couple yards and would have been a touchdown if he’d stayed within himself. This was a deep over from the slot against Cover-4, and Palmer beat safety Kerby Joseph over the top. 

Mayfield did have defensive tackle Benito Jones pressuring him right when he threw the ball, but that’s a throw you need to make. Mayfield was pressured on 13 of his 41 dropbacks in that game, and he completed two of 10 passes for 17 yards and a sack.

This deep incompleton to receiver Chris Godwin on third-and-10 with 1:04 left in the game was one such negative example. The Lions ran a zone exchange out of Cover-4, and Mayfield was in shotgun with a 2×2 formation. The backside flat/post combination was a great design against this coverage, and Joseph was beaten again. With edge defender Julian Okwara dropping into coverage, Detroit defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn sent linebacker Derek Barnes and cornerback Will Harris on an overload pressure to the other side. Harris got through, and Mayfield threw a worm-burner to his target.

For the season, Mayfield has completed 81 of 165 passes for 1,035 yards, seven touchdowns, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 78.2. So, it’s not as if he’s a complete disaster under pressure – this game was an oddity, but it presented most of the things about Mayfield that tend to give you pause. 

It’s now time for Mayfield to silence the doubters.

“When there are plays to be had, we have to take advantage of them,” Mayfield said this week. “It’s staying consistent – they play extremely hard. It just jumps out on film, obviously [with] the way [Lions head coach] Dan Campbell runs that team – everybody swarming to the ball, playing for each other, playing extremely hard with a lot of effort at all times. They’re a tough opponent and they make it hard on you.”

Mayfield will obviously have a better chance to advance to the NFC Championship round if he can avoid making it hard on himself.

In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys investigate the things that those around Mayfield have done to rein things in when necessary.

You can watch this week’s episode of “The Xs and Os,” featuring all the most important matchups of the divisional round, right here:

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You can also listen and subscribe to “The Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…

…and on Apple Podcasts.

Jared Goff beat the Buccaneers in Week 6, and he can do it again

The Buccaneers threw everything at Jared Goff in Week 6, and Goff had no problems. Might be time for a different plan in the playoffs.

In the locker room after the Detroit Lions’ 24-23 wild-card win over the Los Angeles Rams, head coach Dan Campbell wanted everyone to know that he was more than fine with the 2021 trade with the Rams that flipped Goff for Matthew Stafford.

There was no question in that game who Campbell trusted to make the final play that sealed the game for his team.

The Lions placed their ultimate faith in Jared Goff, and it absolutely paid off

Now, the Lions are hoping to make it to the NFC Championship game, and they’ll have to beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to do so. Goff will likely be a major component of that equation. When these two teams faced off in Week 6, the Lions ran the ball 22 times… for 40 yards and no touchdowns. Rookie Jahmyr Gibbs was unavailable for that game, and he’ll be ready to go for this one, but it’s not a guarantee that any team will do well against Tampa Bay’s run defense.

Detroit’s 20-6 win was keyed by a defense that frustrated Baler Mayfield over and over, and Goff’s performance. He completed 30 of 44 passes for 353 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 107.5. Buccaneers head coach and defensive shot-caller Todd Bowles is great at designing different and effective blitzes, and disguised coverages, but Goff had no issue with any of it. Perhaps more than any other game this season, this one showed how far Goff has come as a quarterback from a mental perspective.

In that game, Bowles sent five-man rushes on 17 of Goff’s 44 attempts, and he completed 13 of those passes for 9.2 yards per attempt, and 3.7 average yards of separation for his receivers. This 27-yard pass to receiver Amon-Ra St. Brown at the start of the fourth quarter featured two staples of the Lions’ passing game — under-center play-action, and heavy personnel — in this case, two tight ends. This was a five-man rush as opposed to a blitz, but the Bucs also switched from a single-high look to Cover-6, and Goff had no issue whatsoever with that. St. Brown perfectly exposed the void in that coverage switch.

Goff’s 45-yard touchdown pass to receiver Jameson Williams with 3:27 left in the third quarter was another example of Goff’s acuity against a complex defense.

This was a zone exchange in which edge-rusher Joe Tryon-Shoyinka dropped into flat coverage, and safety Christian Izien rushed from the second level on the other side. At the same time, the Buccaneers showed a nebulous coverage look that resembled Cover-4 to a point, but flipped to Cover-3 post-snap. Safety Antoine Winfield Jr. came down to cover receiver Josh Reynolds, making Ryan Neal the deep-third defender.

The Lions had a great plan for either coverage with a flood concept out of trips right in which Reynolds, Jameson Williams, and Amon-Ra St. Brown worked all three levels of the field with out-breaking routes. Williams had Neal beaten on the deep route, cornerback Carlton Davis was confused as to which receiver to cover, and that’s one way to get yourself a 45-yard score.

In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys go deeper on what Goff did to the Bucs in Week 6, and why Todd Bowles might want to investigate different parts of his playbook.

You can watch this week’s episode of “The Xs and Os,” featuring all the most important matchups of the divisional round, right here:

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You can also listen and subscribe to “The Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…

…and on Apple Podcasts.

One (potentially) fatal flaw for each remaining playoff team

Each team in the divisional round is good enough to get there, but they all have potentially fatal flaws… and here they are.

Divisional round weekend is often regarded as the best weekend in football. The best eight teams are in action to determine who will play for the respective conference championships, and usually promises four really quality football games.

Every team is in this spot for a reason, but they all have an achilles heel that, if exploited, could turn their next mistake into the final act of their season.

The Xs and Os with Greg Cosell: Previewing the divisional round of the playoffs

In this week’s “Xs and Os with Greg Cosell and Doug Farrar,” the guys preview all the big matchups in the NFL’s divisional round.

And then, there were eight! It’s time for the divisional round of the NFL playoffs. and Greg Cosell of NFL Films and ESPN’s NFL Matchup, and Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire and the USA Today Sports Media Group, are here to get you ready for the most interesting matchups that could decide who advances to the conference championships.

Houston Texans at Baltimore Ravens: The Week 1 game between these two teams doesn’t mean a lot, because the Ravens were dealing with C.J. Stroud in his rookie debut, and Stroud is an alien at this point. The Ravens are aware, and here’s how they can counter the Texans’ outstanding defense. Also, both of these teams have a ton of great, underrated talent on defense.

Green Bay Packers at San Francisco 49ers: The Packers have seen desperately-needed defensive improvement over the last three weeks, but is that enough to stop Kyle Shanahan’s offense? And how will Jordan Love do against a San Francisco defense that doesn’t really have one type of staple coverage?

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Detroit Lions: When these teams played in Week 6, Baker Mayfield had his worst game of the season. But this is a different Buccaneers team than it was then, and there are ways for Mayfield to engineer a different result. The problem for the Bucs is that Jared Goff has proven that he’s ready for whatever Todd Bowles throws at him.

Kansas City Chiefs at Buffalo Bills: The Bills have far too many injuries on defense, and Patrick Mahomes is finding winning concepts with at least one receiver, so this will have to be a Josh Allen game if the Bills are to advance.

You can watch this week’s episode of “The Xs and Os,” featuring all the most important matchups of the divisional round, right here:

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You can also listen and subscribe to “The Xs and Os” podcast on Spotify…

…and on Apple Podcasts.

Baker Mayfield claps back at Lions DB C.J. Gardner-Johnson: “He’s gotta do a little more film study”

Baker Mayfield clapped back at Lions DB C.J. Gardner-Johnson when Gardner-Johnson questioned Mayfield’s place in the Bucs’ passing game.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will travel to the Motor City to play the Detroit Lions in the divisional round of the playoffs on Sunday. The two teams previously played in Week 6 of the 2023 regular season — it was a 20-6 win for the Lions, and Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield did not play particularly well. Mayfield completed 19 of 37 passes for 206 yards, no touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 56.8. Probably his worst game of the season. He was frequently speeding up in the pocket whether he was hurried or not. He didn’t throw with good base fundamentals, and he threw off-platform more than he needed to, which led to a lot of incompletions against tight coverage.

Maybe that’s why at least one Lions defender might be a bit overconfident right now. Defensive back C.J. Gardner-Johnson recently had this to say about Tampa Bay’s passing game.

“If you give that Tampa group a good quarterback, that’s a good group — [Mike] Evans, [Chris] Godwin, [Russell] Gage, that’s a great group. I played against ‘em for a year. [Rams receivers Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua) probably right rank there as one of the best groups, [as a] combo, with the running back. That’s hard. One-two punch with the running back, it’s going to give us a run for our money. Gotta be smarter than we normally are and be more quick and decisive with the calls.”

Well, that was certainly a veiled shot at Mayfield, and Mayfield didn’t waste much time forming a response. Gage, by the way, missed the entire regular season after suffering a torn patellar tendon during a joint practice with the New York Jets last August.

“[Gardner-Johnson] must be going off preseason stuff that the media was talking about,” Mayfield said. “He didn’t play our first game so I’m excited to see him. I think he’s a really good player. He has been for a while. He’s been an impactful guy on every team he’s been on. … But yeah, he’s gotta do a little bit more film study.”

In Gage’s absence, sixth-round rookie Trey Palmer from Nebraska by way of LSU has become that important third man with Evans and Godwin, catching 40 passes on 68 targets for 440 yards and four touchdowns, including this  -yard scorcher against the Philadelphia Eagles in the wild-card round.

Maybe the confusion has to do with Gardner-Johnson missing that Week 6 game — he suffered a torn pectoral muscle in Week 2 against the Seattle Seahawks, and didn’t play again until Week 18 against the Minnesota Vikings. But that also does free up more time for film study…

4-Down Territory: Tua Tagovailoa, Mike McCarthy, Nick Sirianni, Worst of the Week

In this week’s “4-Down Territory,” the guys get into Tua Tagovailoa, Mike McCarthy, Nick Sirianni, and the Worst of the Week for the wild-card round.

Now that the wild-card round of the playoffs is over, it’s time once again for Doug Farrar of Touchdown Wire, and Kyle Madson of Niners Wire, to come to the table with their own unique brand of analysis in “4-Down Territory.”

This week, the guys have some serious questions to answer:

  1. What should the Miami Dolphins do with Tua Tagovailoa?
  2. Should this be the end for Mike McCarthy in Dallas?
  3. Has Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni become more an liability than an asset?
  4. What was our Worst of the Week?

You can watch this week’s “4-Down Territory” right here:

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You can also listen and subscribe to the “4-Down Territory” podcast on Spotify…

…and on Apple Podcasts.