As soon as he’s healthy, Baker Mayfield will be the starting quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
That should be obvious, but after the Bucs finally got their first win of the season last week, there were a handful of voices insinuating there could be a quarterback controversy brewing in Tampa Bay. Undrafted free agent rookie Jalon Daniels played well in a 24-16 win over the Dallas Cowboys in front of a national audience, getting his first win as an NFL starter.
But as impressive as he was considering the circumstances, he benefited greatly from a dominant performance from Todd Bowles’ defense, and a huge night from running back Bucky Irving, who racked up over 160 yards rushing and scored a pair of touchdowns (one rushing, one receiving).
Daniels carried plenty of buzz into Sunday’s home matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers, but despite a few flashes of positive play, the rookie struggled with mistakes and missed opportunities that allowed Aaron Rodgers and company to erase a 16-3 deficit in the fourth quarter en route to a 26-19 overtime victory.
The former Kansas Jayhawk completed just 22 of his 43 pass attempts for 164 yards and a touchdown, with a pair of crucial interceptions that helped the Steelers get back in the game after the Bucs got out to a 13-0 lead. He added 39 rushing yards on four attempts, but the positive plays were simply too few and far between. Daniels and the Bucs struggled mightily to move the ball throughout the entire fourth quarter, while Rodgers and the Steelers turned turnovers and long drives into points.
Daniels struggled with accuracy and decision-making all afternoon long, taking multiple sacks in critical moments, and he missed a handful of easy throws that could have led to a different result on the scoreboard.
It’s impossible to ignore that Mayfield hadn’t played terribly well either prior to suffering a dislocated thumb on his throwing hand that has forced him to miss the last three games. For the most part, Irving has been the only bright spot for the Tampa Bay offense, and while the defense has been solid for most of the season so far, it hasn’t been enough for the Bucs to avoid a 1-5 start after offseason projections that expected them to compete for an NFC South title.
And it’s not like Daniels didn’t look good at times during Sunday’s loss, from engineering a touchdown drive and finding Emeka Egbuka in the end zone, to running down Jamel Dean to save four points on what could have easily been a pick-six at the end of regulation, to a clutch fourth-down run that moved the chains and kept the Bucs alive in overtime.
But any talk of a legitimate quarterback controversy between Mayfield and Daniels was always ridiculous. Daniels is performing admirably for an undrafted rookie, and there are still plenty of reasons for Bucs fans to be excited about his potential as a valuable backup to Mayfield moving forward. But Tampa Bay just handed Mayfield a hefty new contract extension that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL, and he’s easily one of the unquestioned leaders in the locker room.
It remains to be seen when Mayfield will be back to full strength, but as soon as that happens, he’ll be right back in the QB1 spot, no matter what Daniels has done in the meantime.
