Tag: Chris Godwin

Bucs have the most career receiving yards in the NFL returning in 2024

No team in the NFL has more career receiving yards returning for the 2024 season than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

No team in the NFL has more career receiving yards returning for the 2024 season than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

It helps when you have a future Hall of Famer like Mike Evans pulling a ton of that weight, with 11,680 career receiving yards to his name, and ranking No. 1 by a comfortable margin in every major receiving category in Bucs history.

But Chris Godwin ranks No. 2 in all of those categories, meaning the Bucs still have the two most prolific pass-catchers the team has ever seen playing on the field at the same time again this season.

Here’s how the rest of the league stacks up when it comes to career receiving yards returning this season:

Considering the Bucs don’t have much in terms of experienced depth on the current roster beyond Evans and Godwin, it makes it that much more impressive that they’re still at the top of this list.

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Five Nittany Lions who deserve to be on the cover of EA Sports’ College Football 25

Five Penn State players that deserve to be on the cover of EA Sports’ College Football 25

Social media exploded on Thursday morning as EA Sports dropped a teaser video for College Football 25, and Penn State fans shared the excitement of the entire college football community. Due to naming rights and licensing with the players, EA Sports has been unable to release a new installment of the game since 2013. But with the world of NIL at an all-time high, those difficulties are no more, and the game will be back this summer just in time for the new college football season.

If you watch closely during the teaser, Penn State is one of only a few schools to be shown throughout the trailer, along with Oklahoma, Florida, Notre Dame, Alabama, Michigan State, Nebraska, Michigan, Texas A&M, Florida State, and Georgia. This may not mean much, but this does all but guarantee that Penn State will be included in the game’s newest edition.

In the 11 years since the previous game, the Nittany Lions have had some dominant collegiate players who never got to see themselves in a video game unless they made it to the NFL. Several Nittany Lions delivered video game cover-worthy performances, so there is no shortage of options if EA Sports decides to put a Penn State player on the cover.

With three consensus All-Americans, four first-round NFL draft picks, six New Year’s Six bowl appearances, and five 10-plus win seasons since the release of the last NCAA Football game, Penn State fans will for sure have many players that come to mind when discussing the next cover athlete.

Penn State’s ability to consistently win double-digit wins makes Penn State one of the best programs to build from if they choose to play dynasty/franchise mode, but as the much-anticipated game’s release draws closer, here are five Nittany Lions who deserve a shot at being on the cover.

Tampa Bay’s 10 biggest salary cap hits heading into the 2024 offseason

Tom Brady is now officially off the books, so here’s what Tampa Bay’s cap situation looks like going into the offseason.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are heading into the offseason with some big questions in free agency.

The team has a number of free agents to pay, and the good news is that there’s a little more room to make that happen this year. Tampa Bay has the 10th-highest cap space in the league and is now free of the financial burden from quarterback Tom Brady, so they’ll have ample opportunity to try and re-sign studs like wideout Mike Evans, quarterback Baker Mayfield and safety Antoine Winfield Jr.

This is subject to change with extensions, re-signings and new additions in the coming months, but as it stands this very moment, here are the 10 biggest salary cap hits for the Bucs heading into the offseason (per Spotrac):

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.

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…

Mics caught a giddy Baker Mayfield yelling a meme at Chris Godwin after finishing the Eagles off

Baker Mayfield is hilariously way too online just like the rest of us.

Baker Mayfield’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers are a wonderful story this NFL postseason. We can’t let that get lost in the shuffle of the Philadelphia Eagles’ collapse.

A former No. 1 overall pick, cast off by one of the league’s most inept organizations, taking his new team to the divisional round? What a redemption arc for Mayfield, the steadying force that has the Buccaneers on the verge of another NFC title game appearance.

In a new video from NFL Films, we got more insight into Mayfield’s joy on the field after Tampa Bay upset the Eagles in Monday night’s wild-card game. After launching a bomb downfield to Chris Godwin for the game-icing touchdown, Mayfield’s first reaction was to yell an underrated meme at his receiver.

He’s just like us, folks!

Indeed, Godwin was “down there somewhere,” as an elated Mayfield joked. Give your playmakers a shot, and chances are they’ll come through for you. The Buccaneers should carry this sort of carefree attitude into Detroit this weekend. It might be the catalyst for an even deeper playoff run.

Eagles eliminated from playoffs after 32-9 loss to Buccaneers

Eagles eliminated from playoffs after 32-9 loss to Buccaneers

The Eagles are set for a dramatic overhaul following the team’s shocking 32-9 loss to the Buccaneers in the wild-card round of the NFC playoffs.

Philadelphia was 0-11 on third and fourth downs combined, tallying 268 total yards on ten offensive drives in a sloppy affair that saw missed tackles and no answer for the Tampa blitz as the Eagles were held to 38 rushing yards on the night.

Baker Mayfield outplayed Jalen Hurts, going 22-36 passing for 337 yards, three touchdowns, and 0 interceptions with a 119 quarterback rating.

Rachaad White was strong on the ground, rushing 18 times for 62 yards on the night.

The Eagles will now head into an uncertain offseason, having lost six of the final seven games played, and an overhaul could include head coach Nick Sirianni with the likes of Jim Harbaugh, Bill Belichick, and others available after mass changes around the league.

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Eagles Twitter reacts to humiliating 32-9 loss to Buccaneers in wild-card round

We’re looking at the social media reaction from Philadelphia fans after the Eagles loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Wild Card round

The Eagles are set for a dramatic overhaul, and there’s nobody safe outside of Jalen Hurts, A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith, and Jalen Carter following the team’s shocking 32-9 loss to the Buccaneers in the wild-card round of the NFC playoffs.

Philadelphia was 0-11 on third and fourth downs combined, tallying 268 total yards on ten offensive drives in a sloppy affair that saw missed tackles and no answer for the Tampa blitz as the Eagles were held to 38 rushing yards on the night.

With a long offseason set to begin, here’s how Twitter reacted to the madness.

Eagles vs. Bucs: 10 takeaways from first half as Tampa leads 16-9 in NFC wild card game

We’re looking at then takeaways from the first half as tthe Buccaneers hold a 16-9 lead over the Eagles in the NFC wild card game

The Eagles were nearly run out of Raymond James Stadium, but after some timely drops by the Buccaneers and a renewed effort on defense, they trailed 16-9 at halftime.

Julio Jones had three catches in the first half for 22 yards before exiting with a concussion, and Philadelphia held Mike Evans and Chris Godwin to a combined two catches for 30 yards on seven targets.

With the second half set to begin, we’re looking at takeaways from a hard-fought first half.

Eagles vs. Bucs inactives: Avonte Maddox to start at safety with Reed Blankenship ruled out

Reed Blankenship is among seven Eagles ruled out for Philadelphia’s wild card matchup against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Eagles will be without two key starters for tonight’s NFC Wild Card Round game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after Reed Blankenship was ruled out with a groin injury.

Blankenship was listed as questionable, but after a light pregame workout, the talented safety will miss Monday’s matchup at Raymond James Stadium.

All-Pro wide receiver A.J. Brown will also be out with a knee injury suffered in the Week 18 loss to the Giants.

Jalen Hurts was a limited participant during Thursday’s practice before being upgraded to a full participant on Friday and Saturday.

Cornerback Darius Slay, wide receiver DeVonta Smith and D’Andre Swift were full participants in the final practice of the week and had no game status designations.