Baker Mayfield Season Trending Up?
December 17th, 2025
Turning the corner?
Yes, Joe can take away positives from the loss to the Dixie Chicks on Thursday night. No, really.
The first two were the return of Mike Evans and Jalen McMillan. Man, that’s the best the Bucs passing game has looked maybe since the bye, certainly since the loss to the Patriots.
And looky there, the Bucs proved you can actually have production from a tight end. Seeing Devin Culp catch a touchdown pass warmed Joe’s heart. It was the first touchdown catch by a Bucs tight end this season — in Game 14!
The offense really flashed evidence of what may have been if not for all the injuries.
And Joe hopes last Thursday is a sign Baker Mayfield has snapped out of his funk. In Mayfield’s previous five games, he has really struggled.
Joe isn’t anti-analytics as some suggest, only against not the crazy numbers crunching. For example, the calculator crowd loves something called “EPA.” This is one of those stats Joe cannot embrace.
What does “EPA” stand for? Expected Points Average. Right away, Joe is holding a crucifix to this stat. Expected? Whose expectations?
Whenever a stat starts with the word “expected” or “adjusted,” that means someone’s twisting numbers and as Joe was taught in high school, people can twist and stretch numbers to prove any point they want to make.
But Joe will acknolwedge that if you look at Mayfield’s EPA stat from Weeks 8-15, you can see he has really fallen off the map. Does Joe believe Mayfield isn’t much better a quarterback than J.J. McCarthy or Shedeur Sanders? Of course not. But this stat, even if Joe doesn’t believe in it, documents in at least a roundabout way that Mayfield has had a rough last six games.
Mayfield threw for 277 yards and had two touchdown passes Thursday. That’s his best game since he threw for 273 yards and three touchdowns against New England.
If Mayfield really is climbing out of his slump, he picked a perfect time. It’s December and the Bucs need two more wins to make the playoffs. What better time for a quarterback to start warming up than now?
Remember when Baker Mayfield was an MVP candidate early in the season?
He's been a bottom 3 quarterback since Week 8. Only McCarthy and Sanders rank worse. pic.twitter.com/7oEOtHVW9x
— Iain MacMillan (@IainMacBets) December 15, 2025
December 17th, 2025 at 4:09 am
Want to know what’s going to happen this week? lets pull a page right from the history books:
Playoff experienced Bucs football team host an up and coming team new to the pressures of the playoff race.
It was 2001 Bucs hosted the Saints. Bucs knew what was needed for a playoff push. Even though Tampa Bay was 7-6, the 3rd to last game of the season set up a must win situation against New Orleans for path to the wild card (2001 was still the NFC Central, NO was in the West)
Bucs won 48-21 it was never close. I think the Bucs will know how to deal with pressure of playoff race and win 27-17
December 17th, 2025 at 4:13 am
EXPECTED stats are really meant for fantasy football players, because that’s where the expected comes from. Projections, usually an aggregate of projections averaged out, so if Baker is expected to get 250 yards but ends up with 275 he has an EPA of +25. its helpful to fantasy, not so much to real world football
December 17th, 2025 at 4:47 am
Bottom line is Baker has played as well as he could with no weapons and a terrible oline. All this means is Bucs can get away with resigning him for about 37 million instead of the 50 or 55 million they might have been in the hook for.
Baker is the franchise Qb we always wanted and will break every Tampa Bay passing record by end of next year barring injury.
I beleive we will win out finish 10-7 and get beat in first round of the playoffs because of our defense.
Why don’t we try anything new? Saints line up their ends extremely wide keeps Qb contained in pocket only place we get pressure is right up middle wouldn’t that help us some?
How about trying Vea on the edge? Literally try anything on defense that might give us a spark.
December 17th, 2025 at 4:52 am
Hah! Difference back then is we didnt have a todd type coach.
December 17th, 2025 at 4:54 am
It doesn’t matter who’s on the field with Baker he’s been inaccurate and tap dancing into sacks. Even when he has good protection which was pointed out by Fitz during the game last Thursday. The offense looked somewhat better with the top WRs back but he still couldn’t throw a routine crossing route to ice the game. He had great protection on that play as well.
Baker’s biggest challenge is the 4th quarter, especially in the playoffs. We’ll see if Baker can play well in the 4th down the stretch because thats going to be the difference between winning and losing. Can Baker guide the offense to run out the clock or score in the 4th? Or will we see more turnovers and 4 and outs? We’ll see…
December 17th, 2025 at 5:51 am
Hope Grizzard throws to Culp more now.
December 17th, 2025 at 6:32 am
We need Chukwuma on the field.
Wirfs needs to protect the pocket from the interior.
Wirfs at LG.
Chukwuma at LT.
The Big 4 are healthy. Evans, Godwin, McMillan, and Egbuka.
The Big 3 are healthy. Irving, White and Tucker.
Our only issue on offense now?
The offensive line!
Get Chukwuma on the field!
December 17th, 2025 at 6:53 am
Love that idea Teacher! Joe let’s get that question asked at Bowles next presser.
December 17th, 2025 at 7:09 am
You don’t take one of the leagues best LTs, and make him a guard. What we could do is make Barton the LG, and play one of the PS centers. Funny how Licht let Hainsey walk, and used a 1st round pick on Barton. Hainsey’s O line, that he leads put up 48 points last week, and his team sits at 9-4. Imagine where we’d be if we resigned Hainsey, and drafted Barton to play guard? Yeah Licht’s a draft guru who knows how to build an O line. Fire him with Bowles.
December 17th, 2025 at 7:40 am
Bee, we’ve seen him overcome 4th qtr deficits and win games 5 times this year alone. Are you daft? Baker is in his third year here. 51 games including playoffs (1.5 playoff games per year) and 28 wins. With Mike and Chris and JMac fresh we’re gonna win more games this year and more playoff appearances. Baker has started every game since signing here. Joe, any stat showing Baker bottom 3 QB in the league for any stretch of time is skewed. And should never again be used.
December 17th, 2025 at 7:45 am
EPA is like WAR in baseball.. I remember in 2008 with the Rays Longoria went down for a month and Aybar actually tore it up the month he was out…So I agree with JBF this is made up trash.
December 17th, 2025 at 8:06 am
agree with Teacherman
middle of the oline is soft as cotton and allows too much pressure up the middle…Chuk held his own and at worse case you can chip with Durham and craft a run heavy game plan…
the problem is still Grizz lol…he abandons the run early and often…unfortunately, it’ll get worse with all the WR weapons returning
GO BUCS!!!!
December 17th, 2025 at 8:11 am
Try Chuk at guard. Do NOT put Wirfs there.
December 17th, 2025 at 8:28 am
Getting pressure from the middle (which has been the norm of late) wrecks every QB from Johnny Unitas to Patrick Mahomes
December 17th, 2025 at 8:34 am
Kenton
How many months ago were those Baker comebacks? The season is 17 games sir and when a player is being paid 30+ million per year then I personally expect him to make plays in the 4th quarter all season long. No one is perfect obviously and it’s not all Bakers fault obviously.
But when it came time to win in the 4th quarter, recently, he hasn’t come through. The Bucs just needed him to get a 1st down against, didn’t even need a game winning drive and he couldn’t get it done. That’s on him.
December 17th, 2025 at 9:11 am
There’s 3 games left in the season, how far can he trend when he just had his first 200 yard passing performance since November 9th!
December 17th, 2025 at 9:47 am
speachless since the last 2 games no will or heart or intelligence on the field and more so on the sideline
December 17th, 2025 at 9:54 am
Chukwuma just started playing football!
He’s not ready for LG!
And Wirfs has a huge lower body, he’s perfect for LG!
Go look at pictures of Larry Allen!
Wirfs would be perfect at LG!
He’s fast. He can pull.
No one can push him back.
He will actually move DTs and NTs so we could actually have a running game!
With Wirfs at LG and Chukwuma at LT we could POUND the ROCK all the way to a Super Bowl!
We have a three headed monster at RB!
We could control the clock and keep our defense OFF the field!
And JPP needs to replace Hall.
And Hall needs to be made inactive.
He’s so soft man.
He never makes a play!
December 17th, 2025 at 9:56 am
WBL and Bee. 5 active QBs in the NFL have thrown for over 40 tds in a season. Mahomes, Stafford, Rodgers, Burrow and Baker. That’s it. Definitely a hall of fame trajectory. He could easily play 10 more years.