Baker Mayfield Was Lights Out When He Threw These Passes
November 11th, 2025
Somebody failed Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield and the Bucs on Sunday.
That’s the only conclusion Joe can come to when he read these numbers from NextGen Stats by way of Eric Edholm of NFL.com.
You saw it. Joe saw it too. Why the Bucs were so adamant on throwing short passes, screen passes, having receivers run routes short of the sticks when the offense needed eight or more yards for a first down on Sunday was absolutely maddening to Joe.
It gave Joe flashbacks to former Bucs commander Greg Schiano and the storied Mike Glennon era.
This was reflected in the sorry third-down conversion rate (38.5 percent), which, for the past month, has been a hallmark of the Bucs offense.
And you may get angry too when you see these numbers.
Next Gen Stats Insight for Patriots-Buccaneers (via NFL Pro): Baker Mayfield completed 10 of his 13 intermediate pass attempts in Week 10, totaling 165 yards and three touchdowns on passes between 10 and 19 air yards.
So Mayfield’s 165 yards throwing intermediate passes was over half of his 273 passing yards total in the game.
So with Mayfield on fire throwing intermediate passes, why didn’t the Bucs lean more on this or have him throw more of these passes on third downs? Talk about not adjusting.