Baker Mayfield Goes Deep On Xs And Os, 2025 Failure
August 18th, 2026
Remember in Feburary when Todd Bowles hurled 2025 Bucs offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard under the bus?
Joe sure does.
Today on SiriusXM NFL Radio, Baker Mayfield wasn’t harsh on Grizzard, but he was rough on playcalling decisions last season.
Mayfield was asked about his new offensive coordinator, Zac Robinson. The Bucs’ franchise quarterback rolled into how much fun Robinson is having with the Bucs’ beastly offensive line and noted how Robinson won’t make some run-game mistakes seen last season.
“He’s really enjoying the guys up front and all the things that they’re capable of doing,” Mayfield said of Robinson. “And so it’s not just gonna be [a] wide zone [rushing scheme]. He knows that [our offensive linemen] are really good at the gap schemes; you gotta mix it up. And so he’s having a blast and just the constant communication that he has about the system is great.”
“That was a big difference. In ’24, we were a mid-zone team — bread and butter, and the gap scheme was our mix up. And it wound up helping us get to a top-5 rushing team in the league in ’24. And last year we relied on the gap scheme too much. Teams were able to key in on that and bring some pressures and stunts that really screw with that.
“So Zac has a good understanding that you can’t rely on one of those. It’s gotta be a change up every once in a while.
“And just the play-action to be able to get our guys open, protect it, and have the defense guessing about what we’re doing based on the same formations and motions, whether it’s pass or run. It’s been fun.
“And I think just the staff that [the Bucs have] put together, TJ Yates, the pass game coordinator, unbelievable experience as a QB in this league. Just good insight being in our meetings. And then Chandler Whitmer, our QB coach, he’s been unbelievable for me. Just extremely detailed, really dials it in on what we’re trying to get done for the day. Just setting the goals and making sure I have my footwork down. He is the footwork king.”
Insightful stuff there from Mayfield.
Robinson is no Grizzard, but is he Liam Coen, the 2024 playcaller? Robinson has a lot to prove, but Joe is confident Robinson won’t be an impediment to the Bucs offense as Grizzard seemed to be in the second-half of last season.
August 18th, 2026 at 5:51 pm
His offense averaged 20 points à game with the best RB in the NFL.
20 points à game is not impressive at all.
August 18th, 2026 at 6:08 pm
Pay him now
August 18th, 2026 at 6:19 pm
Í kiowa it doesn’t matter now but we should have pulled a Kotter last year and put Coen as our HC.
August 18th, 2026 at 6:19 pm
Teacherman … Falcons had exactly the same problems that we did, only they had them a tad earlier than we did.
They started 3-2, then went on a binge where they lost 7 out of 8 games to go to 4-9. Finished the season on a 4-game winning streak though, to end their season with an 8-9 record.
Look at their defense in their 8 wins, and they surrendered 18.1 PPG average (not too shabby). But in their 9 losses their defense gave up 28.4 PPG average (a huge difference). Strange thing is that in their wins, their offense scored an average of 25.6 PPG, but only averaged 16.4 PPG in the games that they lost.
The Bucs’ season was very similar, except that we started 6-2 before we crapped the bed and lost 7 of the next 8 games before winning our final game & going 8-9 also. In our 8 wins, our defense surrendered only 19.3 PPG average (very similar to the Falcons). But in our 9 losses, our defense coughed up 27.6 PPG average (almost as bad as what the Falcons defense did).
Our offense also had similar problems to theirs. In our 8 wins, we scored 24.9 PPG average, but only 20.1 PPG average in our 9 losses. Not nearly as severe as the 9.2 PPG differential the Falcons’ offense had in their wins & losses scoring, but still roughly of that.
I think Robinson’s gonna do a lot better working our offense this year than he was able to do last season in Atlanta. His QB situation in Atlanta was untenable for any OC. Cousins did fairly decent (5-3 on the season starting), while Penix seemed like he struggled (3-6 on the season starting). So I guess the solution is that we just have to keep Baker healthy this year.
August 18th, 2026 at 6:21 pm
I think baker can only win a superbowl in madden and not in real life
August 18th, 2026 at 6:21 pm
All this talking Baker is doing is just a bunch of nonsense. Here’s what Joe wrote, this time last year about Grizzard and what Baker said about him:
Last year Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield grew tight with Josh Grizzard. He should have. You want your franchise quarterback to be close with his passing game coordinator.
Mayfield was impressed so much he lobbied the Bucs to promote Grizzard to offensive coordinator this spring after then-Bucs offensive coordinator Liam Coen left for Jacksonville.
So far, Mayfield believes Grizzard’s transition has been smooth.
“I think he’s handled it great,” Mayfield said. “From listening on the sideline in the preseason games to the communication, and also being able to communicate with him when I’m not playing in the preseason – just what he’s thinking as the game flows and what we would try and set up.
“I think he’s handled it really well. The offense as a whole has been locked in. He was a little bit more behind the scenes last year, so he had a different relationship with guys being able to joke around with them. He’s still able to do [that], but now when he’s up there on stage installing, everybody’s locked in because he’s really focused on the details. Guys pay attention when he’s speaking.”
As I’ve been saying for months its the same nothing talking points with the same losing game plan with a team “lead” by the same losers of Baker and Bowles. But this season will be different because the Bucs got the Falcons fired OC. Oh ok….
August 18th, 2026 at 6:22 pm
He averaged 20 points a game w the best RB in the league ,,, but he never had a QB
August 18th, 2026 at 6:25 pm
Defense Rules: Amen to that. If the Bucs are down, Baker is going to put his body on the line, for better and for worse. If the rest of the team can reduce that pressure/temptation, I think this could be a dangerous team.
August 18th, 2026 at 6:44 pm
I get that Griz was an issue, but every Offensive problem we had last season started with our O-line being decimated by injuries from the get-go.
You start the season missing guys like Wirfs and Mauch for an extended period…. your running game is gonna suck (It did) and eventually your QB is gonna get hurt (he did.) If your running game sucks, you’re gonna burn out your receiving core. (We did)
It was amazing we started the season the way we did, but with that patchwork O-Line, it was only a matter of time before injuries started mounting along with Ls.
August 18th, 2026 at 6:49 pm
Robinson is a straight up downgrade and that is not a defense of Grizzard who had issues of his own
August 18th, 2026 at 6:58 pm
Hurry Hyrry 1st real game. This is over the edge
August 18th, 2026 at 7:05 pm
I’ll take gainwell,bucky ,tucker and mayfield over any of the Atlanta offensive players.throw in a healthy oline! Definitely!
August 18th, 2026 at 7:29 pm
Bee, you are knowledge of football 🏈 is somewhat above that of us mortal humans, but to post pointed negative words about a season that is still three weeks down the road is living on the edge. If 2026 goes well for the Bucs, some will throw words back at you, but if the train wreck occurs and 2026 is the mirror image of 2025, your words will be etched in stone! Four months down the road, the verdict should be made, if not sooner.
August 18th, 2026 at 7:30 pm
This was the quote Joe linked to in this article from when he talked to Bowles earlier in the year after Bowles fired Grizzard:
“Another reason Bowles decided to move on was that too often Grizzard crafted strong game plans that worked in practices but he didn’t use those plans in the actual games.
“I don’t know; he came up with some good schemes and we had some good things, but we didn’t kind of call them all the time,” Bowles said. “We would run them in practice, we didn’t run them in a game.””
Unless the talent of one team is just worlds above the talent of another team, an NFL team will not be successful if it is predictable. But, a team can have an effective mix of plays that attempt very different things from similar looks.
There was a pattern last year. Grizzard kept shuffling a particular deck that had an effective mix of plays until he hit field goal position. That deck included lots of runs, runs on any down, pre-snap motion and play action.
But, in the second half of the season, as soon as the Bucs got into field goal position, that deck was often tossed aside for one that had a pass on almost every card. Too make it worse, the pass cards were usually plain vanilla shotgun plays – stake Baker out like a goat and invite the beasts to come get him. Play action pretty much disappeared, and even pre-snap motion was too often absent.
Not only did that not lead to touchdowns, it too often led to sacks and the loss of field goal position meaning that “gimme” points never made it onto the scoreboard.
Being an Offensive Coordinator with backups across the Offensive Line, with a future HoF WR injured, with the #1 RB injured, there is obviously tremendous stress.
From the outside looking in, Grizzard’s play calling seemed to reflect cumulative stress failure.
Outside of games with lower pressure, he seemed to make good plans and coach them well as Bowles noted.
In games, at the start of a new drive, he often overcame the pressure and stuck with his good plan and his offense gound out the yards.
But, when he got into the territory where one shot from Baker Might score and and take the pressure away, he seemed to predictably toss the grind and take the shots. The problem there is that the other teams had that figured out and were prepared to stop it. And, stop it they did.
August 18th, 2026 at 8:49 pm
Our offense just never got going for whatever reasons. Our fast start was fools gold – last minute come from behind victories is not a sustainable M. O.
Toopanca could be on to something. Lots of pressure that Grizz wasn’t quite ready for.
Baker has always done better when he’s had OCs that empower him and coach him hard and I think Robinson and Whitmer are a good duo for him.
Without Mike our offense could be truly unpredictable and explosive…. Shiit, we have 6-8 players who could take over a game and post 100 yards on any given day. Not many teams can say that. Z-Rob just has to figure a way to use them all. And we have to stay healthy 🤞🏼
August 18th, 2026 at 10:44 pm
Weston… all true… and you didn’t even mention the defense. LOL
I think they played a part in that 8-9 record. Give them some well deserved discredit!
August 19th, 2026 at 3:51 am
Footwork was, and is, the ONLY thing that stands in the way of Baker playing like an elite QB!
IMO, Chandler Whitmer was, BY FAR, the biggest, most important offseason addition/acquisition of ANYONE on the team (even including Bain)!!
Baker’s footwork started to get fixed under Canales, was elite under Coen, and was absolute trash last year under Grizzard… from the very 1st snap of the 1st game in ATL (this is why injuries being used as the reason for his inconsistencies last year is total BS and I really hope he knows it).
Whitmer has the most important coaching job on this team right now.
And chances are, he’s a 1 year rental for the Bucs, considering his resume, so we better take advantage……