Reason to Believe 'Best of Baker Mayfield' Could Come with Buccaneers
As the Tampa Bay Buccaneers progress forward looking to figure out who their starting quarterback is going to be this season there are still relatively few people who believe Kyle Trask can beat out Baker Mayfield.
Those who detract from the thought that Mayfield is a near lock to win the job with the Buccaneers point to the fact that he's been traded, released, and allowed to walk away as an unrestricted free agent all in less than 18 months.
Something Trevor Sikkema of Pro Football Focus doesn't believe is an accurate reflection of who Mayfield is as a quarterback.
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"You can look at things that happened in Cleveland that were not to his advantage. You can look at things in Carolina - it was never a situation where he was really gonna thrive. The stint with the Los Angeles Rams he gets there beyond midseason so you're not really expecting him to come in and light the world on fire in that situation," Sikkema says of Mayfield's path to Tampa. "Sure this is his fourth team in a year and a half...but there is reason to believe maybe the best of Baker Mayfield could still certainly come up in Tampa Bay."
But even if Mayfield's history isn't completely on him, there's still another quarterback in play here.
Trask is in his third NFL season since being drafted in the second round of the 2021 NFL Draft, and the one-time 'heir to Tom Brady's throne' is now being pigeon holed as a potential career backup by many in the media.
Something Sikkema - a University of Florida Alum - commented on as well.
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"I was just always skeptical of whether or not that would be the case for Trask at all during his career," Sikkema says of the potential Trask wins a starting job in the NFL. "I watched every single game that Trask played (at Florida) and I did not see a starting NFL quarterback when I watched Trask. Maybe like a spot starter kind of a player, but I always felt he was probably more destined to be a backup."
Sikkema isn't against Trask surprising him and acknowledges that the reasons to doubt the quarterback are rooted in logic just like some of the doubt surrounding Mayfield.
So this isn't an embarrassment of riches situation for the Bucs, but a roll of the dice on the quarterback that has the best odds of panning out.
From where Tampa's favorite Pro Football Focus analyst sits, that player is Mayfield, and it isn't really close.
