By Jordan Long
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ season ended in the divisional round losing to the Detroit Lions by the final score of 31-23. The Buccaneers are now into the offseason. One player they must re-sign is quarterback Baker Mayfield.
Mayfield finished his first season as the Buccaneers’ quarterback. He led them to a 9-8 regular season record. Mayfield passed for a career high 4,044 yards and 28 touchdowns. He didn’t force the ball into double coverage with 10 interceptions.
In the postseason Mayfield played well. In two playoff games, he completed 48 of 77 passes for 686 yards and 6 touchdowns. He was fairly careful with the football with 2 interceptions. He was sacked 8 times.
In Sunday’s loss, Mayfield was 26 of 41 passing for 349 yards and 3 touchdowns. The Buccaneers offensive line let him down. He was running for his life and was taken down 4 times. That doesn’t count the amount of times the Lions’ defense brought pressure. Mayfield also tossed 2 interceptions.
Now that the season is over for Tampa Bay, Mayfield is a free agent. According to ESPN.com, Todd Bowles, Head Coach of the Buccaneers, said, “Obviously, it’s too early to talk about that and business is business, but Baker had a hell of a year. We love him. The guys love him. And we’ll see what the future holds.”
Of course, Tampa Bay wants Mayfield back. He played well for them this season. The risk though is Tampa Bay could end up losing Mayfield since he is a free agent. A team could pay more for the quarterback than Tampa Bay. The Buccaneers could avoid that with the franchise tag.
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