So start preheating your ovens; it’s officially Baking SZN.
Former No. 1 overall pick and Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield has been officially announced as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers starting quarterback for Week 1 of the 2023-2024 NFL season.
The announcement came with a cool social media graphic posted from the Bucs Twitter account (no, I’m not calling it X),. Mixed replies followed, some excited, some trolling, and some complaining about former University of Florida QB Kyle Trask not getting the nod.
No matter where you stand or have stood on the matter, Baker is, for better or worse, going to get a chance to prove that he can return to his Offensive Rookie of the Year form that he showed in Cleveland.
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For a team that is in a weird period of change following the roller coaster TB12 era, the announcement comes as a bit of a relief.
You can disagree with the decision, but better to be making a definitive decision like this than to be noncommittal to either of the quarterbacks. That’s just disrespectful and a waste of everyone’s time and energy.
Baker can go out and perform or go out and fail, and the Bucs will act accordingly.
Head Coach Todd Bowles is at least on a lukewarm seat, if not a hot one, due to the disappointing performance of the team last season with Tom Brady under center as well as the Bucs’ probable desire to begin a full rebuild if things go really south this season.
Bowles will not hesitate to give Trask the green light to take Mayfield’s place, should the former Oklahoma Sooner go out and play more like his last season in Cleveland than his first.
So, all of that to say, do not fret Gator fans. Trask still very much has a chance to reenter the starting QB conversation as soon as Baker Mayfield shows that his performances are more in line with his previous two years than the first two of his career.
For now, let’s all hope that the Bucs got this right. Otherwise, things could get real ugly real fast, and I could be writing some NFL Draft prospect previews while regular season football games are still going on (because there’s only so many ways you can say “the Bucs sucked this week”).
The Ravens-Bucs matchup will take place this Saturday, Aug. 26 at Raymond James Stadium, with kickoff scheduled for 7 p.m.
With Mayfield announced as the starter, we’ll see how the week plays out and if the coaching staff lets on who will be taking the snaps for the majority of that matchup with the Ravens, whose preseason win streak of 23 was broken by the Washington Commanders Monday night.
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