The biggest quesiton of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers offseason has finally been answered. A day after the team wrapped up its kicking competition, the flip side of the roster got some much needed confirmation when Baker Mayfield was named the team’s starting quarterback.
Mayfield being named the starter ends the offseason quarterback battle he was waging with Kyle Trask, who will now be his backup on the depth chart.
It’s a bit of a bummer for Trask, who put in one of the best performances we’ve seen out of him on Saturday night against the New York Jets. Trask started almost the entire game, playing the whole first half and then coming back in when John Wolford suffered an injury that required him to be taken away on a stretcher.
What stood out as much as Trask’s performance was the absence of Baker Mayfield. Bucs head coach Todd Bowles said after the game that the plan was to play Mayfield but he decided to roll with Trask since the latter was already warmed up and in a groove.
The absence of Mayfield was widely interpreted as the Bucs tipping their hand that he was about to be named the starting quarterback, which ended up being the case roughly three days later.
Buccaneers name Baker Mayfield starting QB for Week 1
On Tuesday, Todd Bowles finally confirmed what we’ve all suspected since March: Baker Mayfield will be the Bucs starting quarterback Week 1 against the Vikings.
Bucs’ HC Todd Bowles announced Baker Mayfield as the team’s starting QB.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) August 22, 2023
This was always the most likely outcome, as a lot needed to go wrong for Mayfield to lose the quarterback competition. When he was signed back in March the idea was that he was essentially getting a $4 million consulting fee to either beat Trask and confirm that he’s not yet ready to take the reins or lose the role and give the Bucs a full season of evaluation before making a decision on what to do at quarterback in the future.
Mayfield started out a little rough at training camp but corrected things in a big way by turning in an impressive debut start against the Steelers in the Bucs preseason opener.
Despite not playing on Saturday, the starting job is his. Bowles mentioned on Saturday that he expects everyone to play in the Bucs preseason finale, which means Mayfield will get one final tune up before his much-anticipated regular season debut in three weeks.