Baker Mayfield Explains Why It Didn't Work in Carolina

Baker Mayfield appeared to be on the last leg of his career in the NFL as a starting quarterback after getting his second and third chances with Carolina and the L.A. Rams last season.

What he did this year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, no one saw coming. He threw for 4,044 yards and 28 touchdowns to just 10 interceptions, guiding the Bucs to another NFC South crown and a playoff win over the Philadelphia Eagles in the Wild Card round.

Mayfield recently spoke about his turnaround season on First Things First with Nick Wright and Chris Broussard and why that success didn't happen in Carolina a year ago.

"It starts top, down. How they run the organization, everybody being on the same page. When you got a lot of voices going on behind the scenes, you're making a lot of distractions for your players. You're not putting them in position to have success to play free. So for me, to get to Tampa, it was refreshing. Knowing coach (Todd) Bowles from the pre-draft interviews when he was with the Jets, knowing what type of guy he was. Him and Jason Licht just told me to be myself, be the best version of that. That's an empowering feeling as a guy that's been asked to kind of contain who he is as a person, wears his heart on his sleeve a lot. An empowering thing that they allowed me to do."

This is very similar to what we had heard this past season with there being too many voices for rookie quarterback Bryce Young. With a new offensive coaching staff and new leadership in the front office, maybe that all changes.

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