Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield came into the 2023 season with an opportunity. He had an opportunity to replace the great Tom Brady, and more importantly, he had an opportunity to resurrect a once-promising career.
In 2023, Mayfield, who signed a one-year, $4 million contract in the offseason, had career-highs in passing yards, completion percentage, and touchdowns; he helped the Buccaneers win the NFC South for the third straight season; On Monday night, Mayfield was starting in the playoffs for the first time since the 2020 season when the Buccaneers hosted the Philadelphia Eagles, and he was at his best.
The number one pick in the 2018 NFL Draft completed 22 of 36 passes for 337 yards and three touchdowns as the Buccaneers defeated the Eagles 32-9 in the Wild Card game.
Tampa Bay will travel to Detroit to face the Lions in the Divisional Round next Sunday.
The 28-year-old became the first quarterback in club history to throw for 300 or more yards and three or more passing touchdowns in a postseason contest.
“He was sharp,” Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles said about Mayfield. “I mean, the whole game he was sharp. Like he said, they dropped some balls but he kept coming back, he kept going to them. He was putting the ball only a place where they could catch it. He didn’t turn it over. They kept making play after play after play. He did a hell of a job.”
Mayfield came into this game battling an ankle and rib injury, but none of that seemed to bother him as he effectively moved around and helped the Bucs rack up 426 total yards.
The Buccaneers were underdogs coming into this game, but they played like the much better team, and according to Mayfield, it was a team effort.
“Yeah, I said immediately after the game, we worked extremely hard to get a chance to be in the playoffs and we just wanted an opportunity and our guys came out and played really, really well. Special teams, defense, once again, Chase (McLaughlin) is a stud,” Mayfield said. “Defense played lights out. Yeah, we should have had a lot more points on offense, but we did just enough to get the win tonight, and, yeah, we’re happy but still got more to go.”
The Buccaneers lost to the Eagles 25-11 in Week 3, and you could hear a lot of Eagles fans on that night; Mayfield felt the energy was different in the stadium this time around.
“Yeah. Big difference in tonight’s game compared to the first one with how many Eagles fans were here tonight,” he said. “Tampa showed up, so we appreciate that. Unfortunately it was the last one here, so, but it was electric. We could feel the energy and we fed off that.”
Tampa Bay also lost to the Lions 20-6 in Week 6, but Mayfield feels the Bucs are a different team.
“When I just immediately think back about the Lions game, a lot of missed throws by me,” Mayfield said. “I think we had a lot of stuff there. We just didn’t play our best game offensively, and so we’ll look back at the tape once we get into the game plan stuff, but we’re very different than we were early on in the year, and that’s something to be proud of, that we’ve continued to improve and we haven’t reinvented the wheel. We just stuck with it and just gotten better at the little things.”
