After the game Buccaneers’ Quarterback Baker Mayfield had, they might hand the MVP to Mahomes tomorrow. it was one of his worst performances since he was wearing a Panthers uniform. Detroit with a bunch of nobodies on the backend made it look like the 2000 Ravens with how he was playing. The defense tried. They tried their best, but they couldn’t hold the Lions back forever.
To start with the positive, despite the yards, the defense as a whole had a pretty good night. I say that with the knowledge each player had at least one missed tackle. But they kept Detroit off the scoreboard. Goff wasn’t looking as sharp as he usually does and had a couple bad turnovers. One fumble that was just a great play by Yaya, the other was just a meatball right to Jamel Dean. They could not however stop Jahmyr Gibbs. Mother of God it was bad. Over 200 scrimmage yards as he nearly outpaced the entirety of the Bucs offense. He was one of the few consistent playmakers for Detroit on offense. Todd Bowles though I thought called a mostly good game for the defense. His players more than anything failed to execute, especially on the missed tackles.
Baker’s Bad Night
Let’s now look at Baker. I love Baker, you all should know this. So I am saying this with love. Baker needs to look in the mirror and slap who he sees. He single-handedly cost the Bucs three TDs. He had ONE good drive the whole game. Hint, games have a lot more drives than one. Grizzard wasn’t exactly calling a great game at first, but when there were guys open, Baker completely missed. I don’t know if the crowd was getting to him or if the pocket wasn’t good enough, but he played like he had never QB’ed in the NFL. He wasn’t exactly helped by his skill players. Rachaad was mostly quiet, Emeka didn’t do much, and Heck was dropped in his lap on a lot of snaps. But those are just excuses. Baker played like shit, end of story.
It’s pretty easy to write this game off as a fluke. And in many ways it was. There was some questionable calls by the refs and some lucky bounces for the Bucs. But one thing did reemerge for the Bucs. They once again started slow on both sides. The defense was flat footed on the first Lions drive and the offense, well it looked like shit looked all game, so that wasn’t noticeable. The slow starts have to stop or you can get a game that spirals like this.
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I expect Baker to play better the rest of the season because he has demonstrated he can play elite. You have the Saints next week, who play tough despite the record, and then the bye after. The problem is the Buccaneers will be without Mike Evans for the rest of the season. A crushing blow for the offense and just the spirit all around for the team. At this point you have to just wipe your hands and move on to next week.
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