Bucs essentially confirmed Baker Mayfield as Week 1 starter on Saturday night

Baker Mayfield suited up for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Saturday night but he didn't step foot on the field.

Kyle Trask played almost the entire game, both by design and due to an unfortunate injury to John Wolford. To his credit, Trask played pretty decent against the Jets, getting off to a rough start but putting together a nice touchdown drive in the second quarter.

Trask hooked up with rookie Trey Palmer on a nice 33-yard touchdown reception on that drive but managed to put together a handful of other impressive throws throughout the night. Seeing so uch of Trask, and seeing him play better than he did in the preseason opener against Pittsburgh, might suggest the Bucs quarterback decision got more complicated on Saturday.

Instead, it's likely that the Bucs already have clarity on who they're going to name the starting quarterback.

Buccaneers Rumors: Baker Mayfield basically confirmed as Week 1 starter

Nothing is official until Todd Bowles says so, but it's not hard to connect to dots between Baker not playing despite there being an opportunity for him to do so and a decision having already been made.

While Trask was impressive, his performance likley shores up the notion that the Bucs have a solid backup behind Baker. That's even more crucial after the third quarter injury to John Wolford, who needed to be taken off the field on a stretcher after suffering a scary head injury.

Mayfield being named the starter is not at all surprising. Even though his signing back in March was billed as the start of a competition with Trask, it always felt like Baker was the front runner. More things needed to go wrong than right for him to lose his footing, and his strong debut last Friday against the Steelers went a long way in settling the debate.

Not having Mayfield play at all in the second preseason game tells us that the Bucs coaches have seen enough out of him to confidently make a decision.

That decision has yet to be officially made, but it's starting to feel like the worst kept secret of the offseason.