Baker Mayfield Was Lights Out When He Threw These Passes
November 11th, 2025
Somebody failed Baker Mayfield and the Bucs on Sunday.
That’s the only conclusion Joe can reach when reading these numbers from NextGen Stats by way of Eric Edholm of NFL.com.
You saw it. Joe saw it too. The Bucs being so adamant on throwing short passes, screen passes, and having receivers run routes short of the sticks when the offense needed eight or more yards for a first down on Sunday was absolutely maddening to Joe.
It gave Joe flashbacks to former Bucs commander Greg Schiano and the storied Mike Glennon era.
This was reflected in the sorry third-down conversion rate (38.5 percent), which, for the past month, has been a hallmark of the Bucs offense. Yes, Joe realizes 39 percent is the NFL average.
And you may get angry when you see these numbers.
Next Gen Stats Insight for Patriots-Buccaneers (via NFL Pro): Baker Mayfield completed 10 of his 13 intermediate pass attempts in Week 10, totaling 165 yards and three touchdowns on passes between 10 and 19 air yards.
So Mayfield’s 165 yards throwing intermediate passes was over half of his 273 passing yards total.
With Mayfield on fire throwing intermediate passes, why didn’t the Bucs lean more on this or have him throw more of these passes on third downs? Talk about not adjusting.
November 11th, 2025 at 12:03 am
Todd Bowles failed him.
November 11th, 2025 at 12:13 am
Grizzard showed hes still a rookie. We have seen some good but damn this might have been the worse game he has called all year. Also I have seen enough of Rachad white as rb1. With bucky out for who knows how long time to see tucker get 15 plus carries in a game he has has way more burst than white.
November 11th, 2025 at 12:14 am
Did he have the time to throw intermediate length passes after the injury to Brederson? Mike Jordan was like a turnstile and I bet a lot of those yards came on the first drive before the injury. I wish there were stats on the number of hamstring injuries occurring across the NFL because I bet the Bucs would be #1 by a big margin. Is it playing in Tampa where it is hot and humid all the time and players get dehydrated quickly? Is it that the training/conditioning staff is less than stellar when dealing with heat related issues? The number of injuries this season has to be more than just an outlier, if so the problem needs to be dealt with. If the Bucs want to keep things in house, fine, if someone get held accountable for doing a bad job, just make the adjustments….
Ditto for the poor play on the field; Bowles does not have to call out players like Benjie Morrison or SVD but he needs to hold them accountable and not give them a pass.
As for Grizzard, he is working with limited means but you’d think he could come up with a wrinkle or 2. Bucs certainly miss Coen and Coen’s fun ride in Jaguarland is over too, Jag fans want accountability for the team blowing a 19 point 4th quarter lead last week and a 1-3 run the past month as well as Trevor Lawrence looking mega-mediocre.
November 11th, 2025 at 12:51 am
No no no, what we need to do is throw screen passes to our backup TE on 3rd down – the slowest skill player on the team – that’s what wins games because defenses will never see it coming. I think I heard Leftwich say that as well.
With that said, I haven’t seen the ALL22, but to give Wiz Kid a little wiggle room, I’m going to guess the Bucs receivers were not getting much separation. The Pats corner duo is tops in the league – and it’s a credit to e2 he had such a good game. In the future, if/when the Bucs ever get any of the other receivers back, it’s a different ball game since you can’t help everyone when/if you ever had Evans, Godwin, McMillan, e2 on the field at the same time – and with Tez stepping up, that’s when the offense opens up.
Still, running TE screens on 3rd and long is one of the stupidest things ever. We don’t have Grok here anymore to throw guys off him even if he’s covered.
November 11th, 2025 at 1:14 am
On what downs were those intermediate pass attempts thrown?
November 11th, 2025 at 1:48 am
Those two TD’s to Tez were perfect throws. The last one to Tez in the back of the end zone was really terrific. Mayfield split a couple of defenders and put a bullet into Tez hands.
November 11th, 2025 at 1:59 am
Ummmm… How do you suppose he throws friggin DEEP then!? When, he doesn’t have receivers who are getting open and beating ANYONE downfield. Uhhh, how do you expect him to have enough TIME to do so in the first place, with THIS O-Line!? And, it sure seemed to WORK last fricken year, under Cohen!!!! Short to intermediate is the ONLY way to go, and THEN you catch ‘em cheatin’ by hitting the SEAMS and CROSSES downfield, when they’re not looking for it, and least expect it. Just like Drew Brees says!!!! You take and hit all the easy stuff underneath (short to intermediate) with slants and etc. getting it out FAST to your weapons in SPACE, in stride to pick-up the “Yackety-YAC” (scheming your receivers open)… With quick-hitting’ run-plays (draws, delays, inside zone, let’s go), a little ‘play-action’ – DON’T forget the play-action! Get into a RHYTHM FIRST. Get up to the line add keep it movin. Let’s GO. Pace. Tempo. Hell, we don’t even HAVE a real “2-Minute” Offense, currently. It’s Ridiculous. So, yeah… Let’s just sling-it DEEP LoL. And, then WHAT!? Ridiculous. Baker is a total RYTHYM-QB to begin with. He could actually, ‘buy-time’ by getting him OUTSIDE the pocket from times to time, and allow him to create and manipulate guys open, and find the throwing angles lanes. It does NOBODY any good blithe him just standing there in the middle all day long. He can’t SEE the whole FIELD that way, and has NO angles or lanes to get it out to them, even IF he could.
November 11th, 2025 at 2:11 am
You keep them ‘off-balanced’ is the key! And, you are NEVER accomplishing that by ‘huddling up’ after literally EVERY PLAY, and then just walkin’ your ass up to the line, and running the play-clock down to just TWO-Freakin-SECONDS LEFT, every damn time. NOT happenin.
November 11th, 2025 at 2:14 am
FortMyersDave…it’s football injuries happen…it’s nobody’s fault.
November 11th, 2025 at 2:15 am
You start it off with the short easy COMPLETIONS FIRST, and move the chains. Keep-it movin’ and get into a RHYTHM FIRST… THEN, you hit the crosses and seems downfield.
November 11th, 2025 at 3:11 am
Grizzard Doha’s the play lists from the last two offensive coordinators. But, no matter what is happening in the game, he only seems to believe that he can win with the pass.
After Bowles called him out for that after the Detroit game, he did somewhat better against New Orleans. And, in some ways, he even did a bit better in this game – until the crucial moment Sunday.
At the two minute warning in the fourth quarter, the Bucs were averaging five yards per carry; they had converted two of two third downs running the ball; at that point, they had converted one of nine third downs passing the ball.
The Bucs were at the NE 27 with two minutes left to play, still with all three timeouts, trailing by five points, facing third down with three yards to go. Surely during the timeout, the Bucs looked at their 100% conversion rate running on third down and there 11% conversion rate passing on third down and realized that they should run the ball. Surely they looked over their run results and saw that Tucker had run off LT for 12 yards and 18 yards, and that White had run there for 4 yards and said, “Lets run over LT”. Or, that running off LG had produced 4, 5, and 6 yards since Brederson left the game and said, “Let’s run over LG.”
But, of course, what Bucs actually did was pass the ball for the 10th time on third down and failed to convert for the ninth time. And, on fourth and three, of course they passed again and turned over the ball on downs when they should have been pounding the ball over LG and LT until the Patriots showed at least once that they could stop it.
After the turnover on downs, Winfield, who clearly had outside containment responsibility and was in position to take out the lead blocker and turn the runner back to his help, forgot the fundamentals that Bowles harps on and gambled on a highlight reel play only to let the lead blocker make a highlight play as he sent Winfield stumbling and tumbling into the pursuit, scattering the pursuing players like bowling pins and freeing the RB for an explosive touchdown run.
The Bucs had control of the ball and the clock with the opportunity to pound the rock and wind the clock unless and until they needed one or two or three timeouts. But, all they could think to do was throw the football with every reason to believe that the rush was coming and tremendous evidence suggesting that they would fail.
November 11th, 2025 at 3:14 am
That should say, Grizzard has the play lists …
November 11th, 2025 at 6:51 am
Toopanca, that moment was my biggest gripe of the game…with everything that happened prior we still had a chance to take the lead.
I was sreaming at the TV and anyone in the house that would listen to run the dang ball twice.
November 11th, 2025 at 6:56 am
Great analysis Toopanca. Just curious. Has any member of the press asked Grizzard or Bowels why the threw short of the sticks on 3rd down, so many times? Maybe it is better not asked. It would likely be a smoke us the ars answer which would p!ss us all off.
November 11th, 2025 at 6:59 am
*up (not us)
November 11th, 2025 at 7:15 am
We’re in big trouble. They held the fort down for as long as they could with the healthy players we have left especially on offense but as the weeks have turned into months waiting for these key guys to return so they’re running on fumes now. The defense has not stepped up enough to compensate. I believe the players are starting to realize that they can’t get it done with who we have left. Right now this isn’t even a good team much less a great team. And with a vanilla style coach who’s not very skilled at making in game adjustments then you get what we got.
November 11th, 2025 at 7:24 am
It almost seemed like the Patriots dared the Bucs to run…we’ll take our chances with your running game:
1) your run game doesn’t really scare us (without Bucky)
2) we don’t believe your OC will stick with the run even if we show “light box”
3) we are going to go Man on the outside with help over the top…(we have very very good corners)
I’m not sure Grizz sees what the opponent’s strength / weakness are and creates a game plan around that…Note to Grizz..Buffalo is ranked 30th against the run 🙂
November 11th, 2025 at 7:37 am
Grizz is failing the Bucs right now….
gotta run the ball Grizz and that will open everything else up….
it may be time for Grizz to head to the booth…maybe he can see things better..
GO BUCS!!!!
November 11th, 2025 at 7:43 am
Our line couldn’t give Bake the time he needed and our defense just didn’t presence. It was an epic failure of a game. We need some REAL game plans.
November 11th, 2025 at 8:15 am
Never felt like that was going to be a winning drive, the swagger and vibe was very different, nothing like the supreme confidence shown in the early weeks of the season. Get healthy and reset for december and January
November 11th, 2025 at 8:16 am
Not sure about the play calling lately. So far, looks like Grizzard may be staying.
November 11th, 2025 at 8:17 am
Added: He hasn’t been adapting well the past few games.
November 11th, 2025 at 8:47 am
Its been obvious since the Lions game the opponent’s plan is play mostly tight man with a spy and get pressure with 4 man rushes against our depleted o-line.
Grizz needs to be able to gameplan man beaters and our WRs need to execute man beater routes. We should really be leaning on Tez with option routes. He is the quickest player on the team by far and should be out there breaking ankles on in-out option routes.
November 11th, 2025 at 8:56 am
Going back to previous point and the Joe’s OP, Baker tore them up on those intermediate routes almost exclusively against zone.
November 11th, 2025 at 9:10 am
Hate to say it. Baker missed otton and tez johnson multiple times in the first half, because he was forcing the ball to ebuka.
November 11th, 2025 at 9:27 am
GRIZZARD hasn’t learned to adjust on the fly. Is it not having a cohesive offensive line (which factors in) and he’s learning the coordinator position.
Returning key players later in the season will help greatly, but his inexperience could doom the season. Hopefully his play calling will improve as the season progresses.
November 11th, 2025 at 9:41 am
941
agree
baker forced and missed a few
GO BUCS!!!
November 11th, 2025 at 10:58 am
That somebody is named Josh Grizzard, and his 3rd down play calling was ATROCIOUS.
Defenses have been all over our screens / passes behind the LOS for the past 3 games straight and he has made ZERO adjustments.
How did our 3rd down specialist from last season turn into Byron Leftwich over the summer? I want answers.
November 11th, 2025 at 12:23 pm
941 agreed bro. It’s like he thinks EE is the only play maker. A lot of people here on this site hate on Otton but he catches most things and moves the chains.
Cyber bowels doesn’t call the offensive plays. Bowles called a good defense from play calling stand point. It’s not Bowles fault his guys missed some tackles and were out of position. He brought the blitz but the guys couldn’t get there. Wasn’t Bowles fault
November 11th, 2025 at 12:24 pm
Coen knew this
November 11th, 2025 at 1:02 pm
Why do people assume that there is always somebody open to throw to or that a QB had enough time to get to the third read before he started scrambling for his life?
November 11th, 2025 at 3:48 pm
Get off the Coen trip. Last time I bothered looking, Panthers are winning more games than Jags. What is it on here? You have a team with a lot of injuries to major players, and a greenhorn offensive coordinator. And Bridgewater is the backup QB?
November 12th, 2025 at 12:58 am
Wasn’t it just a few weeks ago that everyone was screaming that we’re a passing team? Stop running on first down you all were ranting about. Now Baker is passing and that’s wrong. Make up your minds. The only thing truthful is that our coaches have got to learn to adjust faster.