Baker Mayfield Revisits Washington Playoff Loss
July 23rd, 2025
“Baker, you can get it done.”
Remember the way Baker Mayfield reacted on the Monday Night Football game last year against the Chiefs when he and Pat Mahomes and other captains from both teams took to midfield for the overtime coin flip?
Kansas City won the flip and Mayfield reacted like he walked into a tailgate porta potty that had Rosie O’Donnell sitting on the throne. He knew the consequences. And he was right.
Mahomes and the Chiefs get the ball. Boom, game over, Bucs lose. That’s a wrap from Kansas City.
Now Mayfield’s reaction may not have been as dramatic when Washington got the ball back late against the Bucs in the wild card round of the playoffs last January at The Licht House. But Mayfield had a similar premonition.
And again, sadly, Mayfield was right.
Appearing on “Pardon My Take” podcast with Big Cat and PFT Commenter, which was uploaded Monday, PFT Commenter, a Washington fan, asked Mayfield if he knew it was over when Washington got the ball late with a chance to win.
Mayfield didn’t deny it.
“Yeah, I mean, at that point, you can kind of feel the momentum [drifting] out of it,” Mayfield said.
But Mayfield wanted to make it perfectly clear: The Bucs offense — his offense — lost the game, not the defense.
“We just offensively didn’t play good enough,” Mayfield said. “And it was one of those days. Like we were averaging, I think, 30 points a game, and we didn’t even come close to that.
“I just made too many mistakes.”
Mayfield admitted he’s fired up for training camp to start this morning to get ready for the season and avenge an early playoff exit.
“We got a lot of the boys back, eleven starters, and then some on offense,” Mayfield said. “So made some additions. I’m excited though, yeah.”
Today at 8:30 a.m. springs new life and hope for the Bucs. Will that hope be realized?
July 23rd, 2025 at 4:16 am
I’m glad Baker can be honest about what happened. I wonder if the Baker fans will call him a hater because of it. With all the flaws the defense had last season they still held WAS to 10 points by the start of the 4th quarter. The Bucs didn’t score a TD until late in the 2nd qtr. Not good enough obviously. I’m hopeful this season will be better.
Go Bucs.
July 23rd, 2025 at 5:53 am
I just finished watching the game over. For all the talk about defense not forcing a punt or turnover, they held commanders out the end zone for the most part of 2nd half. That end around fumble and next possession with us settling for three hurt us.
July 23rd, 2025 at 6:03 am
liam coen called a jet sweep to a rookie who knocked the ball out of his qbs hands, that was as dumb a playcall as blitzing the rams in the nfc championship. a hand off to Bucky and who knows what would have happened bucky was hot and they couldn’t stop him
July 23rd, 2025 at 6:28 am
I have no interest in revisiting either of those games. They were awful losses.
July 23rd, 2025 at 6:28 am
Bucky literally had the game in his hands I hated that end around call so bad terrible call ! Baker gave his all that game!
July 23rd, 2025 at 6:29 am
Leaders take the blame,,, The D will be improved this year and maybe Washington will think twice about going for it on 4th every time ,,,
July 23rd, 2025 at 6:32 am
Last year was confirmation that the Bucs (post Brady) are a premier NFC team. We came out flat in the Playoff, hopefully the Coach and the Team Captains are better this year.
Who knows why. When we are flat and it happens several times a year when the team just seems to be going through the motions. It’s then we need the individual leaders by group to get Fired up and Motivate their group to make a game changing play.
Let’s get through training camp with no more major injuries.
July 23rd, 2025 at 7:30 am
Only 18 passing attempts
July 23rd, 2025 at 7:36 am
That Rosie visual at 7:30 am is heinous. Thanks Joe. Go Bucs!
July 23rd, 2025 at 7:53 am
One last ditch effort by JBF to blame the defense for the playoff loss. Defense played fine. Offense completely choked in the 4th qtr. You guys said the jet sweeps always worked. That’s actually false. The jet sweep to McMillan the week before vs the Saints went for -6. You said the jet sweep was going to work if the handoff was clean. That’s also false. It was 3 Commanders vs 2 Bucs on the edge. The jet was dead, that’s why McMillan didn’t think he was getting it. Jet sweeps are run-run options.
July 23rd, 2025 at 8:08 am
Coin flips ARE NOT 50-50. That is a mathematical number. In real like they measured it and 50.8% of the time it was heads. The study thinks that people hold the coin on heads and flip it nearly the same. How do the bucs spending millions of dollars on things not know that?
July 23rd, 2025 at 8:32 am
BucU… I don’t ever rewatch losses. What good does it really do? I don’t get paid to be an analyst. I want to enjoy my life as much as I can, wallowing in grief and sorrow doesn’t help. LOL
I’ve read notes and looked at stats from games we lost but that’s as far as I’ll go. Seeing it once was bad enough
Now I’ve rewatched playoff games enroute to both super bowls multiple times.
Go Bucs!
July 23rd, 2025 at 8:32 am
Do we suppose that members of the Bucs D appreciate the respect?
Is it any wonder Baker is a leader beloved by his teammates?
July 23rd, 2025 at 8:33 am
Joe says:
Mayfield reacted like he walked into a tailgate porta potty that had Rosie O’Donnell sitting on the throne.
That’s one of your best ones ever, Joe. I may not quit laughing all day!
July 23rd, 2025 at 8:47 am
Baker is a team guy, all the way. That’s my quarterback. Takes the bullet for his boss. And my QB knows that his boss can’t manage a game nor run a clutch defense – couldn’t even force a punt. But he blames himself. Not JMac’s horrible drop or inexplicably running into the bleachers on a jet sweep.
That was a team that was simply unprepared for the game. Having two 50% distracted coaches instead of two 100% focused coaches really sucks.
July 23rd, 2025 at 9:42 am
Let’s be clear. When someone says that we only had 18 pass attempts, that sends a misleading picture.
Actually, we just did not complete enough 1st downs to keep drives going.
If we actually break down the stats:
The Bucs went back to pass at least 26 times.
The 18 passing attempts that the previous poster mentioned.
Plus, the 7 scrambles by Baker Mayfield for 23 yards.
Plus, the 1 sack.
On the other hand, the running backs had a total of 18 attempts in traditional running the back.
To me, that is not a horrible pass — run ratio. It just was not enough 1st downs made during the game.
Now, if someone wants to blame that on only Liam Coen, that is fine with me.
July 23rd, 2025 at 9:42 am
Coen was consistently bad all night. He was highly overrated. Our offense against that defense we win 8 out of 10.
July 23rd, 2025 at 9:49 am
“Kansas City won the flip and Mayfield reacted like he walked into a tailgate porta potty that had Rosie O’Donnell sitting on the throne. He knew the consequences. And he was right.”
Funny. Then when you really contemplate what this means, not funny. Olfactory nightmare.
Joe, you owe me a Jameson because I just spit it out. And I hurt my esophagus laughing.
July 23rd, 2025 at 9:51 am
@geno
A lot of it was due to insane TOP advantage WAS had (35 mins to 25 mins). We only punted twice in that game and WAS only had 2 more first downs total, but they were dinking and dunking and just grinding clock the whole game and the defense couldn’t generate negative plays or turnovers.
Our offense only had 7 possessions the entire game when the average in an NFL games is 11-12 possessions. So putting up 20 points in that context is still pretty solid. With just average possession time they should have hit their averages from the season.
The D had 2 stops all game, and other than that gave up a score on every drive and all those drives ate a lock of clock.
That fumble in the 4th quarter killed us. We had a chance to take a 2 possession lead at that point even with the lack of offensive chances
July 23rd, 2025 at 10:38 am
That’s the way I look at it Lord Cornelius.
There isn’t one person to blame for that loss and it wasn’t a “bad” loss. It was a real solid Bucs effort from top to bottom, Daniels was just better and their 4th down keep the ball strategy worked.
McMillan/Baker/Coen blundered at a terrible time. Barton screwed up at a terrible time. I really don’t think the D could have done much more, defending 4 downs against Daniels there was gonna be tough for any team.
Having said all that, and I do not blame Bowles, I hope it was a learning experience for him. Easy to say what I am about to from my couch but I do believe Bowles needed to also adjust strategy and fight fire with fire.
Playcalling for Bucs after half should have matched Wash. Run, scramble, dink and dunk to get short yardage situations and go for it on 4th all night. Try to flip the TOP back in Bucs favour. I think that would have worked considering Wash D was not great.
July 23rd, 2025 at 10:40 am
OPEN CHALLENGE TO BAKER MAYFIELD:
BM6, This Buc’s Offense can be as good as any in the history of the NFL! You have to make that happen this season! You are the driver of this Monster Truck!! Steer it right and the Buc’s can run over any team!! Can you get it done?
July 23rd, 2025 at 10:41 am
That’s our QB. Taking ownership for errors. A real leader all the way. I can’t say it enough, so glad Baker is our QB!
July 23rd, 2025 at 12:00 pm
Baker blaming the defense would destroy the culture and good will that has been developed over these last 2 years. So being diplomatic is the wise thing to do.
July 23rd, 2025 at 12:31 pm
OK Aqua we all know you hate Bowles, you post the same lame quote 99% of your posts, so tell us all WHO do we replace him with?
July 23rd, 2025 at 1:08 pm
20 points in 7 possessions, do the math, if they get an average amount of possessions, 11-12, that amounts to 30+ points. Not saying the offense is not somewhat to blame, but the redskins controlling the ball the way they did left very little room for error. The Bucs offense only made a few mistakes, but they are magnified because the defense really gave the offense very little help.
July 23rd, 2025 at 4:15 pm
ballwasher – Jason Licht is the man with the answer to your question. Nice handle . The world needs more ballwashers.
July 23rd, 2025 at 4:42 pm
To be totally clear, Baker averaged 36 passes all year long, 36. 18 is how many attempts he DIDNT get at scoring because he only had 18.
18-36=18. Thats half a game Baker didn’t get to play and they only won by 3. Dan Quinn knew the only way to beat us was to keep the ball out of Bakers hands and he did. If the defense would have stopped Washington and got the ball back in Bakers hands another 18 attempts we would have won easily. If you remember right, we would drive the length of the field into the red zone in 6-7 plays. So 18 is plenty enough to significantly change the score!! The word is out, the way to beat Tampa Bay is to keep the ball out of Bakers hands. I hope we have an idea of how to stop this game plan.
July 23rd, 2025 at 5:42 pm
Please tell me how Daniels out played Baker!!!
Daniels: comp %-68.6, avg yds-7.7, TD’s-2, passer rating-110
Mayfield: % 83.3, avg yds.10.3, TD’s- 2. PR-146.5
As usual, statistically, Baker out performs all qb’s when it comes to the playoffs. If you aren’t too lazy, look it up and find out for yourself. Our qb has the highest playoff passer rating of all time-105.9, no one is better in the playoffs, no one. Mahomes-105.8, Stafford-102.3, Allen-101.7, Rodgers 100.1. The rest of the active quarterbacks are lower than 100. Of course Bakers not perfect but according to the NFL, no one plays better than Baker Mayfield when it’s playoff time. You can talk all the BS you want in order to try and diminish his efforts, but in the end, it’s a stone cold fact, Baker Mayfield is statistically the best PLAYOFF quarterback in the history of the game. Most of you don’t even know who you have as your quarterback. One more thing, Baker was in the top 5 of the Heisman voting for 3 years. I’m not sure that has ever been done before. That’s who we have as OUR quarterback!!! Let’s all pull in the same direction and get us another superbowl this year, 2025!!!!
Coen probably had 55% of his brain on getting a big raise of $13 million, who knows…
July 23rd, 2025 at 10:18 pm
Davyboy,
You aren’t going to be able to reason with the band boys who know little about football except marching in the high school, half time show. Baker took the heat because that is what real leaders do.
July 23rd, 2025 at 10:58 pm
Davyboy,
I agree. Time of possession was WAS at 35:26 and us at 24:34. They had 25 more plays but only 66 more yards. They burnt the clock out. Our defense may have held them on points but lost time. The turnover by Baker (or McMillan or both) swung momentum but our defense couldn’t get the ball back. Hopefully our defense is better. I think they will be but by how much?
July 24th, 2025 at 1:00 am
Paratrooper, yeah I remember it was almost halftime and I thought are we EVER going to get the ball back!! And then it hit me, they are playing KEEP AWAY from us, and they did. It worked like a charm.