For the first time since Tom Brady’s retirement, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers finally look like a team with an identity again, and Baker Mayfield is at the centre of it. The former No. 1 overall pick, now in his third season in Tampa, has not only revived his own career but has consistently kept the Bucs competitive in a post-Brady era.
Advertisement
Through six weeks, Mayfield has completed over 70% of his passes for 1,539 yards, 12 touchdowns, and just one interception. His leadership and back-to-back late-game drives have helped the Bucs reach 5-1, further solidifying Baker Mayfield as the team’s north star.
Yet what’s most striking about Mayfield’s resurgence is his personality. The confidence, the trash talk, and the belief he instils in his team feel oddly familiar to longtime Patriots fans, a sentiment that even Colin Cowherd and Julian Edelman discussed on the latest edition of The Herd.
Cowherd kicked off the conversation by comparing Tom Brady’s fire to Baker Mayfield’s edge. “You hear these stories about Brady and Brady was LFG,” Cowherd began.
“The difference is, I think Brady had some Baker Mayfield in him, but Tom was very measured when he’d go on radio or the podium. I just think Tom hid it. He had chutzpah, he had attitude. When I watch Baker, I think there are guys that just have it. I just think Baker’s not afraid to say it at the podium,” he explained.
Cowherd’s observation isn’t far-fetched. Even back in 2012, Richard Sherman revealed how Brady once initiated trash talk in a Patriots-Seahawks game — the same year when Sherman famously hit him with the “You mad, bro?” jab.
In simple words, behind the polished press conferences, Brady was always a fiercely competitive and occasionally trash-talking quarterback.
Another star who supports this claim is Julian Edelman, who spent over a decade catching passes from Tom Brady. And he was honest enough to expand on why this trash-talking is currently suiting Mayfield’s demeanour better.
“Yeah, I love his personality because he’s a dog… But the reason why it’s working right now is because he’s performing. When you can go out and show that you can make plays in high-pressure situations, it makes everyone on the team believe,” the ex-Patriots WR said.
Edelman then explained that the true mark of an elite quarterback is how belief spreads through a locker room.“I played on a team where we thought we could win every week because of our quarterback,” he said.
“And it seems like right now in Tampa, they have such a belief in Baker — regardless if it’s how he talks to the media or how he’s playing — they believe. And when they believe, the defense plays a little better, the offense plays a little better, the special teams plays a little better,” Edelman added.
Hence, for Julian Edelman, the similarity between Tom Brady and Baker Mayfield is all about their presence.
“That’s where the similarities are with Tom and Baker… Everyone believes they’re the guy. If you believe he’s the guy, it doesn’t matter how you get them to believe — they’re believing,” he stressed.
This, perhaps, is what the Buccaneers were missing since Brady’s retirement; a quarterback who could make things happen because his conviction is infectious. And the biggest marker of a team with belief and leadership is how clutch they are.
Baker Mayfield & Co. this season became the first team in NFL history to win four of their first five games of a season by 3 points or fewer. Moreover, they are also the first team in history to have in this sample size to have won games after trailing in each with less than a minute for a regulation time.
Safe to say, for the Bucs, it seems the torch has indeed been passed, just in a slightly louder, scrappier, Baker Mayfield kind of way.
