Perhaps the biggest question surrounding the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this offseason is who will slip into Tom Brady’s shoes and become the starting quarterback this season.
For a hot minute it was going to be Kyle Trask — mostly by default — but other competitors have since entered the arena. Baker Mayfield was signed in free agency and former Los Angeles Rams backup John Wolford joined a few months later.
That seems to be the group the Bucs will carry into training camp in a month, if not into the season when September rolls around.
We know who the Bucs quarterbacks are but that’s a broad answer to a specific question. Who will be the Buccaneers starting quarterback this season? It might be a mystery — or a poorly kept secret, depending on who you ask — but there at least seems to be a timeline for when we’re going to find out.
Todd Bowles reveals timeline for naming Buccaneers starting QB
Speaking to the media at minicamp, Bowles addressed the question of when a starting quarterback will be named. Unsurprisingly it won’t be soon, but it seems that Bowles indeed as a timeline in his head that he’s following while assessing each quarterback in the room.
“Some time during camp or right after camp, there will be a decision made,” Bowles said, via JoeBucsFan. “It’s still a quarterback competition right now.”
Bowles very plainly added that he’s not going to name a starter who is still “in shorts and t-shirts” at minicamp.
That might seem like a throwaway line, but it could come back later to give us an idea of what he’s thinking in training camp. If one quarterback begins to see more action than the others, proverbially putting them in t-shirts and shorts, then it might become easy to read the tea leaves and predict a winner.
Let’s not kid ourselves, though. Such a thing is relatively easy to do right now. No matter how much is made of the quarterback competition at Bucs camp, it feels like Baker Mayfield’s race to lose. When he was signed back in March, he wasn’t coming to Tampa Bay to be the backup and losing that role may even result in his exit from the team.
The Bucs only owe Mayfield $4 million, with the other $4.5 million of his contract tied to incentives. If he doesn’t win the starting role, there’s a chance he gets cut and the Bucs role with Kyle Trask, John Wolford and an emergency third-string who can be plucked from a practice squad somewhere.
Of course, that’s an extreme result. The likeliest outcome is Mayfield winning the starting role in camp and the Bucs seeing where the chips fall from there.