Baker Mayfield sends an incredible message to Buccaneers after OT loss to Falcons

There's no other way to put it: Thursday night was a total gut punch for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

After controlling most of the game, the Bucs collapsed in the final minutes of the fourth quarter and quite literally fumbled the game away. With less than three minutes left, Bucky Irving was charging for what could have been a game-sealing first down when Jessie Bates punched the ball loose and recovered it.

The Falcons didn't score on the ensuing drive, but keeping the Bucs from scoring ended up being the difference in the game. Atlanta rode the wave of momentum to a game-tying field goal and then never let Tampa Bay get the ball back.

It was a crushing loss, one where the full aftermath is yet to be seen. Unlike the loss to Denver, the Bucs snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and fall out of first place in the NFC South as a result. They get a tough matchup next week against a hungry Saints team, but Baker Mayfield is already making sure the mental train stays on the tracks.

Baker Mayfield fell on the sword and took blame for Buccaneers Week 5 loss to Falcons

After the loss, Baker stepped up and took blame for what happened. He didn't have to do that, and certainly wasn't the reason the Bucs lost, but he stood in front of the fire and took the heat rather than allow it to reach the rest of his teammates in the locker room.

Baker was asked about how he felt about personally having a good game, and used it to send a message to the team.

"All I care about is wins, and that's it. So we gotta find a way to finish that game out on offense," Baker said. "I'm thinking about missing that shot to [Sterling Shepard], it should have been a touchdown and we ended up with three points. I'm just replaying that one over in my head where maybe it shouldn't have been an overtime situation."

We've talked a lot about the maturity and leadership of Baker, but it's moments like this where he's worth the money he got paid. It would have been easy to sidestep blame, especially the way the defense allowed over 500 yards to Kirk Cousins and failed to lock things down in the final minutes of the game.

Instead, Baker did something similar to what happened after the loss to Denver. By stepping in front of everyone and accepting blame, even when it's not deserved, he's letting the rest of the team know that there's a goal bigger than just a Week 5 game. This can't be the sort of loss that gets dwelled on and then spirals into two or three more bad games, which we've seen happen to the Bucs before.

Last year Tampa Bay fell into a 1-6 midseason slump, but it was Baker who helped pull them out. He's trying to do the same thing here, and it's a message that the team needs to hear after how poorly things ended on Thursday.

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