Baker Mayfield Found Out Tampa Bay Isn’t Just Hockey Bay
March 14th, 2024
Tampa Bay not just puckheads.
This isn’t exactly No. 1 bullsh!t.
It’s kind of cool to learn how newbies to the Tampa Bay area thought of the place before they stepped foot here.
Take new permanent resident Baker Mayfield. The Bucs quarterback, who signed his new three-year contract yesterday, lives in Austin. But Mayfield has become so enamored with the Tampa he first signed with the Bucs last March, he plans to flip from Austin to Tampa.
Mayfield confessed what he was told about Tampa before he came here last year was that it wasn’t a football town but something else.
“It’s a special place,” Mayfield began. “I came into this place not really knowing what the community was like. [I was] hearing it’s a hockey town, even though they were coming off of a Super Bowl.
“Just seeing the passionate fans – the ones that talk about going to the ‘Old Sombrero,’ the ones that have been fans for a long time and have stuck it out through the thick and thin – that’s what makes it special, the people that are traditional fans.”
Well, let’s be clear. While the Lightning have done an excellent job cultivating a strong hockey fanbase in a southern city, Tampa Bay is football through and through. As popular as the Lightning are, more people watched Bucs worthless preseason games on Channel 8 than Stanley Cup Finals games on the same channel.
But it is cool that Mayfield has embraced the area, learning it’s more football than hockey, or baseball.
And it seems, from the way Mayfield spoke, Tampa has welcomed Mayfield. Hopefully, Mayfield will be here for quite a while. That means the Bucs are winning.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:06 am
Tampa Bay is neither a hockey town, nor a football town…..
…..it is CHAMPA BAY
March 14th, 2024 at 12:11 am
The Bucs have done a fanatic job the last few years rehabbing the heavy stench of losing and this franchise has
I don’t believe were seen in the same category as the Jets and Browns anymore
March 14th, 2024 at 12:13 am
Baker has done such an ideal job being the Bucs successor to Brady, who would thought
March 14th, 2024 at 12:25 am
I remember during the losing streak, camera isolated him at a Lightning game, some boos happened, he wasn’t happy. Later ON, he and Emily were at a Lightning match, everyone cheered, he waved. Dude belongs here
March 14th, 2024 at 12:42 am
As a guy that never missed a home game at the Ol’ Sombrero its nice to hear that some of the players appreciate are loyalty and passion we have for the Bucs.
March 14th, 2024 at 1:12 am
Bayker!
March 14th, 2024 at 1:55 am
I’M With Stan on this one. I only missed One home game from ’76 To ’96. Shout out to those of us who endured 26 straight losses and 14 straight losing seasons!
March 14th, 2024 at 3:51 am
Old Sombrero. Memories.
Jason is doing a pretty goid job the past few years. Brady’s final year was plagued with injuries to the oline. The result was young players develiping with experience.
I wish Ryan Jensen could suddenly show up healthy and rejoin the team for a couple years.
My default will be to cheer Mayfield on when the season starts. I’m hoping we will find in him what the Saints got in Brees all those years ago. If he give us 5 great years from this point, I would be pretty happy.
If he becomes elite over this contract, it would be a dream come true.
If.
I really hope it happens.
March 14th, 2024 at 5:57 am
Loving Baker’s interviews yesterday. Also, caught his one with the NFL channel too. Yes, Tampa is everything football and hockey and baseball – all! Agree with Delusional Intelligence, we are CHAMPA Bay. Never forget the Old Sombrero! A blast from the past.
Go Bucs!
March 14th, 2024 at 6:32 am
Impress me by beating a team with a winning record during the regular season. I worked as an electrician on the expansion of the old Tampa Stadium. I was a fan of the Dolphins when they were the only NFL team in the state. If the Bucs had been in any other division, they would not have made it to the playoffs. I am not confident in Bowles as a HC, and I’m not sold on Mayfield just yet. I like Licht, but we mortgaged the team in free agency by signing a suspect QB imo. I hope that I am proven wrong, but I have learned to temper my expectations when it comes to the Bucs.
March 14th, 2024 at 6:39 am
We will get another Lombardi before he is done as a Buc.
LFG!!!!
March 14th, 2024 at 8:31 am
I remember when the Sombrero was open on one end. The Big Horseshoe!
March 14th, 2024 at 9:45 am
None of these hard heads have figured it out yet.
Baker was elite from the day he was drafted. He was well on his way to fulfilling his early promise when he got hurt. At no point in time did Cleveland do right by him. Just like every high draft pick young QB they took for two decades they were working on ruining him. They took QBJ’s side when it was clear that the over aged,over ratedprima donna was poisoning the locker room against him. Can’t tell you how many times I saw Baker hit on the hands and he still dropped it. Then they send him to Carolinawhich also proceeded to mess him up [no support].
Now he comes here ranked dead last and proceeds to carve his way through two thirds of the NFL’s starting QBs to make it to the elite eight playing red hot in the two play off games.
Forgat all that back handed jive by the stupids that Baker will regress this year, Far from it. This year you will see Baker wade through the brutal schedule upset team after team as he moves to reclaim his spot at the front of te line. The result will be a LOMBARDY TROPHY! You heard it here first.
March 14th, 2024 at 9:47 am
I don’t know who the dummies were that told him Tampa is a hockey town, but it has unquestionably been a football town for almost 50 years. Despite a lot of lousy teams in that era. Ask the Rays.
March 14th, 2024 at 9:53 am
I’m from here, I had all the tickets since way back… Tampa is the same as most fan bases now – front runners. Very, very few people follow losing teams. And most just follow whoever is on top. A few bad years from the Lightning, Tampa would not be a hockey town.
Sure, some of us are still around from the Old Sombero. But a huge chunk of local buzz is because they are winning more than losing. One bad year, many locals will be ordering their Chiefs gear or whoever else, just like during the other dark times.
March 14th, 2024 at 10:34 am
Now I have been a Bucs fan for almost 35 years and I’m 37. I have been through thick and thin with this team. My loyalty never waivered. I promise you this I’ll be a Bucs fan till the day I die. I only root for 3 teams. The BUCS. Any team playing against the Patriots. And any team playing against the chiefs.
March 14th, 2024 at 12:15 pm
Ha, season tickets, N end zone.
Back before the Bucs were announced as an expansion team in 1975, Tampa was ST baseball & UT football
^^mtn^^
Since ’76
March 14th, 2024 at 1:42 pm
Lucky to have him and him to have us. Pass Rush.
March 14th, 2024 at 2:07 pm
And, forgot, USF basketball
^^mtn^^
Since ’76
March 14th, 2024 at 2:51 pm
Oh goodness another Browns didn’t do right by Baker sob story. Give it a rest fanboi juice drinker! If Baker was sooo eleet what happened in 2019 and 2022 then? Why was he on the take it or leave it scrap heap? When he can play consistently well every game not just against shoddy defenses then I’ll believe. I’ll give him this he’s a baller and love watching him escape sacks just wish he’d get rid of the happy feet then again he is short like a penguin he can’t help himself. He needs to increase his completion % because 61% isn’t cutting it. He’ll never be even close to Drew Brees because Brees didn’t play nervous like a little chihuahua among big dogs.
March 14th, 2024 at 3:53 pm
Not to be picky, but Chris Berman was the one who nicknamed the old Tampa Stadium, and he called it the BIG Sombrero, because it was shaped like a big sombrero, not the Old Sombrero.