Although the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were able to cut it close, they deserved to be the losers in their opening week matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals. Facing off against one of the other top quarterbacks in the NFL, Baker Mayfield definitely looked second rate on Sunday at the PayCor Stadium in Cincy, fumbling the game away and leaving both himself and the defense with too much to do in order to bring the game back.
Even though the Buccaneers quelled Bengals wide receiver duo Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins brilliantly, there was just no way back into the game and no way for the emerging duo of Baker and Emeka Egbuka to fire the Bucs in front.
Mayfield just signed a massive contract extension after months of back and forth between himself and the organization, and while he ended up getting exactly what he wanted in the end, this performance in Ohio was not at all the way to repay the faith the Glazers and the organization have shown in him.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers QB Baker Mayfield is turning the ball over like Jameis Winston
As much as the Buccaneers are riding with Mayfield as their franchise quarterback, he's starting to look a lot more like a Jameis Winston clone than Bucs fans would like to admit.
Winston could make all the throws, he had a lot of charisma, and he could win you games with big plays that made the highlight reels. But you could never rely on him, because you always had that sinking feeling that he could throw the game away at the worst possible time and undermine his own talent with poor decisions.
Mayfield has that same "Hero Ball" mindset that screws over the team, and as much as Bucs fans want to believe that he can be the next quarterback to bring Tampa Bay a Super Bowl ring as Tampa Tom did a few years ago, Mayfield could not be any more different than the G.O.A.T.
Because whereas Brady did a great job of taking care of the football by rarely throwing more than 10 interceptions in a season and just about never fumbling it, Baker is Fumbilitis personified and an interception machine. He's not 30 interceptions in a season bad like Jameis Winston, but he was not far off with 16 picks and a 2.8 interception percentage rate even in a strong 2024 NFL season.
Baker Mayfield is still the franchise quarterback for the Buccaneers, and they should not regret the contract at all after one bad game. But Brady was an anomaly by the Bucs standards and the greatest quarterback in franchise history, even in a brief period of time. Mayfield needs to start improving quickly. He loves to talk about accountability, but if he were half as accountable as Brady, he would be improving his ball security markedly by now.
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