The Weekly Baker Mayfield Meeting With The Front Office
December 6th, 2025
Buccaneers GM Jason Licht.
So the chieftain over at GoLongTD.com (as in write real long NFL features) made his way to Tampa about a month ago and popped a Baker Mayfield feature yesterday.
It’s long.
Tyler Dunne went deep on Mayfield, behind the scenes in Cleveland and in Tampa. There’s a lot there, of course, because it’s GoLongTD.com. Yes, the piece is behind a paywall.
Mayfield is not quoted, which leads Joe to believe Mayfield probably told Dunne to jump in Jason Licht’s pool.
Speaking of Licht, Mayfield is continuing the Tom Brady tradition of sitting down with Bucs player personnel suits every week to dive as deep as possible into scouting opponents. It seems the Buccaneers Ring of Honor general manager is front and center with his franchise QB.
But Mayfield also sits down with Licht, McCarthy and the front office each week. It’s one thing to pick up on a cornerback’s tendencies on film. The Bucs’ personnel staff, however, supplies deeper insight. They’ve tracked players since college. They can dust off scouting reports and tell the quarterback anything he wants to know — data that allows Mayfield to more adequately crawl inside the brains of his opponents.”
Everyone has a kryptonite. He’ll find it.
Joe assumes “McCarthy” is actually Bucs assistant GM Rob McCartney. However, Joe does not rule out Team Glazer and Licht operating a secret shadow front office.
McCartney told Dunne it’s rare for quarterbacks to handle so much scouting info and actually process it and use it on gameday like Mayfield does.
Joe’s favorite quote from the piece was from Tykee Smith, the Bucs’ safety playing at (or near) a Pro Bowl level this season. He seems inspipred by his QB.
“That’s where I get my joy from on Sunday,” Smith says. “Being able to watch Baker Mayfield. He’s a dog. He wants to win. You know he’s going to put his body on the line and I feed off that. I’m trying to do the same thing on defense.”
December 6th, 2025 at 3:23 pm
Nice piece!!. Now if we could get a lot more guys on defense to aquire Smith’s mindset, The defense may be short on talented personnel, but heart and effort go a long way. That is something this defense lacks. I think Barber said it about as diplomatically as possible last week on his show. I think as fans we have a duty to harp about this defense until it changes.
On a side note, it was nice to hear Ira say yes to benching McColumn and putting Parrish outside with Isian , sp,in the slot. It can’t hurt. We need some guys who want an opportunity and are hungry. I have to wonder how long is Bowles going to let McColumn play as poorly as he is and keep starting him. The players need to see that lackluster play and effort will get you the bench. Sorry to pick on McColumn ,but while their are other problems on defense, he is really hurting the team right now.Todd bench him please.
December 6th, 2025 at 3:24 pm
Tykee Smith … “That’s where I get my joy from on Sunday. Being able to watch Baker Mayfield. He’s a dog. He wants to win. You know he’s going to put his body on the line and I feed off that. I’m trying to do the same thing on defense.”
Awesome! Only 51 more players to convert.
December 6th, 2025 at 3:46 pm
Qb, oc, GM. Baker does it all
December 6th, 2025 at 3:51 pm
Can Baker rush the passer too? We should be fine tomorrow but hopefully as we get healthy, our offense is gonna be much better and make our defense look much better because of it with leads. Go Bucs!
December 6th, 2025 at 3:56 pm
Football 1 … ‘Nice to hear Ira say yes to benching McColumn and putting Parrish outside with (Izien) in the slot. It can’t hurt.’
Guess I didn’t see that, but that’s as good a solution as any at this point with Dean back healthy. Izien is much like Tykee IMO; aggressive & a ball hawk. Parrish is as good outside as he is at Nickel.
Any idea who Ira suggested replace SVD? We’ve got 4 ILBs on our roster: LVD, SVD, Deion Jones & John Bullock. Pick the most promising two I guess.
December 6th, 2025 at 5:11 pm
@Defense Rules
They should see what Nick Jackson can do. I thought he had the potential to be pretty decent. Sure it was the preseason but he looked like he could be decent. I don’t think it’s gonna matter who they put on that D if they keep running that same scheme/system & dropping everyone out.
December 6th, 2025 at 6:43 pm
Tony, hard to believe both Jackson and Bullock haven’t been used. They actually looked young and hungry in the preseason. Let Lavonte work with them, they could be playmakers.
December 6th, 2025 at 8:24 pm
“Mayfield is not quoted, which leads Joe to believe Mayfield probably told Dunne to jump in Jason Licht’s pool.”
‘It’s long.
Tyler Dunne went deep on Mayfield, behind the scenes in Cleveland and in Tampa.’
——-
I mean how much can the reader put into a “behind the scenes” without Dunne talking to the man himself about it. Makes me wonder why Baker exercised his prerogative not to speak.(if that’s what happened) Could be as simple as not having time available or maybe it’s something else. Strikes me as a bit odd.