Former Buccaneers roasts team for signing Baker Mayfield; ‘He’s not mature’

Not everyone is happy with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers signing Baker Mayfield, as a former player recently called out both the player and the team.

When Tom Brady retired this offseason, it triggered an event that everyone knew would eventually happen. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were always going to need a succession plan, but rather than having one ready the team stitched one together on the fly.

Kyle Trask entered the offseason as the only quarterback under contract. He’ll compete for the starting job in training camp but the team needed to find someone to challenge him.

That’s where Baker Mayfield enters the equation, as the Bucs signed him on the first day of free agency to be the likely starter next season. The feedback wrote itself, as everyone in the world had the same Twitter reaction laughing at Tampa Bay for going from Tom Brady to Baker Mayfield.

It’s a deal that isn’t meant to be a succession plan for Brady, as the Bucs are essentially paying Mayfield a $4 million consulting fee to help them assess if Trask can hack it in a quarterback competition.

Still, not everyone is thrilled with the move as a former Tampa Bay Buccaneers is rolling his eyes at the team’s decision making this free agency.

Former Buccaneers player roasts Baker Mayfield; ‘He’s not mature’

In the most recent episode of his podcast In The Trenches, former Buccaneers lineman Ian Beckles laid waste to not only Mayfield but the Buccaneers for bringing him in to be the team’s quarterback this season.

“I love when a teams says ‘we did our homework on this player’. What homework? You did your homework on Baker Mayfield? What homework,” Beckles asked before flying into his own assessment of Mayfield. “Is he accurate? I watched some games where he was the least accurate I’ve seen. Is he a competitor, yeah he’s a competitor. Is he a winner, not necessarily.

Is he a leader, nope.”

The leadership issue is where Beckles’ line in the sand is drawn with Mayfield, especially coming to a team that just had Tom Brady in its locker room.

”He’s not mature enough. He doesn’t know how to deal with success, he doesn’t know how to deal with any failure whatsoever,” Beckles said. “Any failure he starts do this ‘it’s not me it’s them’, and that’s not leadership.”

As frustrated as Beckles is with Mayfield, he’s equally displeased with the Bucs.

“So we’re going to put Baker Mayfield on a team with lesser talent on both sides of the ball, a lesser offensive line, and win? Okay, I’m glad you did your homework on Baker Mayfield. Forget about what happened in Cleveland and Carolina, forget about what happened there because you did your homework.”

Ouch.

Beckles has a point, as he’s not the only one who is questioning the Bucs decision to bring in Mayfield to be the starter. It’s a tough sell after the Tom Brady Years, but it’s also a low-risk gamble that puts the team where it might be regardless of Mayfield being the quarterback or not.

There’s this idea out there that the Bucs are going to tank, which simply is not the case. However, if Mayfield is the starter and fails to lead the team anywhere, then they’re exactly where they’d be in a tanking situation but at least tried to be competitive — or feign competitiveness.

Baker starting would mean that he beat out Kyle Trask, which would tell the team all they need to know about him which is an underrated metric for success in signing Mayfield this offseason.