Welcome to the Bakery: It’s a Texas trip for the Chef

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are no longer riding their early season high. Tampa Bay’s season is in danger of being tumultuous. With a lot of individual futures riding on the success of the 2023 Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the bakery is quickly turning into a pressure cooker.

This week, Tampa Bay is a 3-4 team up against another 3-4 team and not all 3-4 teams are created equal. In Tampa Bay, you have three wins that feel like they are nearly too long ago to remember and a three-game losing streak setting in like a migraine.

The Houston Texans are 3-4 behind a rookie quarterback who is off to a dream start. C.J. Stroud has nine touchdown passes with just a single interception. A 9:1 ratio is off the charts impressive for a veteran quarterback— a rookie with those numbers, sells jerseys, tickets, and hope for years to come.

Baker Mayfield has had his moments in 2023. With 10 touchdowns and four interceptions, the chef’s production has been respectable, but a 9:1 touchdown to interception ratio is a menu item Bucs fans would probably order.

Photo by Rich Barnes/Getty Images

The narrative around Tampa for seemingly two years now has been the Buccaneers can’t run the ball and they need to establish the running game in order to get their offense rolling. That broken record will spinning again this Sunday. In reality, Tampa Bay needs Baker Mayfield to play well and must do whatever it takes to assist him in that process. The Bucs have three wins, in all three Baker Mayfield has posted a 94 passer rating or better (94.4, 114.5, 116.9). In all four of Tampa Bay’s losses Mayfield’s play has not been as stellar. Posting ratings of 73.1, 56.8, 81.0, and 91.1— Mayfield hasn’t been all bad in Tampa’s defeats, but for a team that has no success running the ball, it really does come down to a quarterback being able to rise above or the team's likely to come up short. C.J. Stroud’s rating on the season sits at 94.9. If Mayfield can get himself to that benchmark, the Buccaneers can get themselves back to .500.

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