Simplistic Formula For Baker Mayfield
September 9th, 2025
The “W” Sunday in Atlanta is all that really matters, but there are a lot of ways to win.
Head coach Todd Bowles outlined one formula for Baker Mayfield on SiriusXM NFL Radio yesterday after praising his precision efforts during a rocky afternoon.
“Threw two great pistol shots in there,” Bowles said of Mayfield’s touchdown passes to Emeka Egbuka. “And I tell my quarterback all the time, if he can throw three touchdowns and have zero interceptions at the end of the game, I will feel very good about us.”
It is a rather simple goal — 3 TD passes (or more) and no picks.
Three NFL quarterbacks hit that mark in Week 1: Aarons Rodgers, Justin Herbert and Mayfield. They all won.
Fun fact: Jameis Winston reached that benchmark just four times in five years as a Bucs starter.
September 9th, 2025 at 8:15 am
We are so lucky to have ‘Born Again’ Baker as our QB for the foreseeable future. He is a Top 10 QB which means we will be competitive as long as he is our QB. Go BUCS!!!
September 9th, 2025 at 8:31 am
That formula is going to need some serious tweaks next week. Texans defense is way better than what we just saw, especially their edge rushers. Doesn’t bode well when considering right now we’re sporting a makeshift offensive line. Hard to throw TD’s when you’re laying on the ground.
September 9th, 2025 at 8:36 am
Baker really got lucky on Sunday. Several of his throws could have been picked off.
September 9th, 2025 at 8:39 am
i’m more confident we can beat the texans than the falcons last week, cj makes a lot of dumb throws not the same kid we saw almost two years ago and our defense should be better
September 9th, 2025 at 8:44 am
Need more passing to backs & TEs….less running on 1st downs
September 9th, 2025 at 8:44 am
“…during a rocky afternoon.” Gotta wonder if the rocky afternoon and the lack of a running game had to do mostly with the reshuffling of the O line? Regardless, an ugly win is way better than a beautiful loss.
September 9th, 2025 at 8:54 am
Regarding potential interceptions, we are obviously used to watching our own team. If we concentrated on every team, there would be potential interceptions that every quarterback almost throws every game. The fact is they weren’t interceptions. Would I like him to be a little more careful with those throws? Of course. But let’s not act like this is something specific to Baker.
September 9th, 2025 at 9:15 am
Baker didn’t take one snap in preseason and it showed, he’ll be better…
September 9th, 2025 at 9:18 am
Gotta say, Herbert looked fantastic against Kansas City. His accuracy was unreal.
September 9th, 2025 at 9:26 am
GREAT week1 WIN!!!!!
week2 will be a completely different challenge…Texans are a better team than ATL and they’ll be extra motivated at home after an L….
this game is about coaching imo….grizz vs ryans…BUCS DC vs Tex OC
GO BUCS!!!!
September 9th, 2025 at 9:30 am
Lt Dan … ‘Regardless, an ugly win is way better than a beautiful loss.’
Truer words were never spoken Dan. Wins & losses is the only real bottom line, but too many fans want it to be ‘pretty’ also. Yesterday’s game was sloppy at times, a slug-fest at times, but a nail-biter at other times. And especially in the 4th quarter. Bucs lost the ‘stats-battle’, but won the game because we scored 23 points & they only scored 20.
Certain things stood out to me. On offense, Bucs used the deep ball quite a bit in our 32 passes. In the 1st qtr, Baker was 0-for-4 deep. In the 2nd qtr, 1-for-1 … to Egbuka for a 30-yd TD. In the 3rd qtr, he was 1-for-1 … to Shep for 19 yds (drive ended up in missed FG). And in the 4th qtr, Baker was 1-for-4 … to Egbuka for 25 yds & another TD. So on the day, Baker was 3-for-10 deep … but for 2 TDs. Low completion percentage, but gotta love the 2 TDs. Got a hunch we’ll be seeing more deep passing this season than we did last year.
On defense, our pass rush sucked … we sacked Penix only once, and had a measly 4 QB hits (2 by Diaby BTW). Our run defense was exceptional … allowed only 69 yards rushing on 28 runs (2.5 YPC average to an excellent running team). Falcons tried to go outside a number of times, but our contain was exceptional (6 outside attempts netted only 12 yards).
Bucs also handled Penix’ deep pass attempts beautifully … he was 0-for-2 in the 1st half, then 0-for-3 in the 2nd half on deep pass attempts. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for our short pass defense … Penix was 27-for-37 short (73%) for 298 yards (11 YPR average for short passing is way too much).
We still seem to be having trouble on 4th down conversions (they converted 3-of-4 attempts). Two of those attempts came in the Falcons’ late 4th qtr drive; both were successful & they scored a TD to go ahead. If other teams come to the conclusion that the Bucs can only stop 25% of their 4th down attempts, we’ll be lucky to win 10 games this season.
September 9th, 2025 at 9:43 am
Defense Rules — I’d call passes of 25 yards and 19 yards intermediate level passes.
September 9th, 2025 at 10:11 am
Geno’s and DR’s different opinions of ‘deep’ passes is shared by me. I’ve seen different stats sources using different definitions of deep passes. Certainly there were longer passes than last year and few passes to the backs with zero? screens. With Coen delivering 28 points/game last year, I’d like to see more passes to the backs/TE’s and few longer passes, as I think our points might increase. The screen game is likely a victim of the very new OL lineup.
September 9th, 2025 at 10:20 am
In reviewing the ALL22, its apparent that the receiver’s route depths and landmarks were off as well, so it was a team effort of QB/WR/TEs being off and affecting the passing game.
September 9th, 2025 at 10:24 am
It was too close. We got lucky this time. These close game plans go 50/50 and that is the Bowles Way. It shows in his record. We need 30 plus a game to break the habit.
September 9th, 2025 at 10:37 am
geno711 & JimBobBuc … Don’t disagree, but I like using the Game stats from Pro-Football-Reference (PFR) more than I do others. Primarily because they’re free (unlike some other analyses), and that leaves others free to check my numbers without having to go behind a paywall.
Haven’t found it written anywhere, but it appears that PFR uses as little as 15 yards beyond the LOS as their deep criteria. Most others seem to use 20 yards.
September 9th, 2025 at 10:53 am
BucsNbeer
Really? You’re going to “coulda, shoulda, woulda” a freaking WIN?
Here’s a prediction. The Bucs have 16 more games left and probably a dozen will involve plenty of second guessing. ALL games are FULL of coulda, shoulda, woulda and it averages out. Hopefully. Right now the Bucs past two games have featured three place kicks that hit the uprights. Two of them doinked in…the Bucs opponents..one of them doinked out the Bucs. Maybe that rare miss for the Falcons at the end was actually Buc luck evening out.
IF the Bucs stay healthy, and IF they enjoy the breaks they received Sunday, they’re going to be very good.
September 9th, 2025 at 11:23 am
Tbbf: Amen x 100! And knock off the @@@@@@ run-up-the-middle on first down. The only time that call works is when a gameplan is creative, unpredictable, and mixes up runs and throws. Using it to start a game?? Please spare me!!!!!!! Grizzard: Don’t you dare whip that out next Monday Night!! GRRRRRRR…!!
September 9th, 2025 at 1:00 pm
Kicker cost us 4 points which in the past he has been pretty reliable. Bucs would of scored 27 points which seems a lot better than 23. The Otton pass really looked ridiculous, Baker was way off and Otton didn’t look like he was even looking for the ball. TE passing has to be more effective in future games.
September 9th, 2025 at 1:53 pm
To me – a ‘deep pass’ is 25+ air yards.
Some/many of the places that provide detailed ‘stats’ use 20+ or 21 as the starting point for a ‘long pass’.
I’ve noticed over the last 2 years of watching every live snap he’s taken that Baker Mayfield is not very accurate on “long passes” – by my and some other’s definition of 25+…
But he’s probably one of the better QBs in the league at connecting with receivers in the 11-22 yard range….
So it depends on whose metrics and criteria you look at as to whether or not Mayfield is in fact “good” at throwing “long passes” or not.
From my perspective – If Grizz is going to have the Bucs take more ‘deep shots’ in 2025 – he needs to focus on plays that have the receiver making the catch in the 15-25 yard range which is a strength for Baker…. not 35+ air yard Go routes which to this point Mayfield has not been very good at….
September 9th, 2025 at 6:09 pm
ints is something that comes up as criticism of baker, so 3 tds and no ints is for sure a great game. i agree with coach todd, take that every time.
September 9th, 2025 at 8:39 pm
Not a huge surprise that Baker was “off” as much as we saw on Sunday. I would say that most of his wide-miss throws were the result of no live-game pre-season work with his receivers. There’s really no substitute for the communication that is enabled by the actual work in a real game. “Rusty” for sure!
BM shook of the rust sufficiently to drive to win because he and EE had been working on utilizing the play. As he demonstrated, Baker’s fully capable of deep throws with accuracy. It’s just all about communication (ref. Cade Otton debacle).
Betting that all of this is being worked out in practice this week, but we’ll see on MNF.
What bothered me most was Baker throwing into crowds that could’ve been avoided. He normally takes risks (no risk/no return), but a couple of these were sure interceptions had the defenders hands were not rocks! That’s the downside of having a 6 foot wildman as your QB!
Looking forward to Monday night. Go Bucs!!