Does Bucs QB Baker Mayfield have Vikings DC Brian Flores figured out?
On paper, Joe doesn’t know how many sober people are putting money down on the Bucs to win Sunday.
The team had one of the worst losses Joe has ever witnessed by puking all over themselves to the Browns. The Browns! The friggin’ Browns! The worst team in the league, Browns! The worst quarterback in the league, Browns!
The gall!
If you had to write a script on how to choke like a dog and lose to the Browns, KitKat-eating Bucs coach Todd Bowles (foreword by Zac Robinson) authored this book. They should win a Pulitzer for non-fiction.
Joe only wishes it was a piece of fiction. But it was real as hell, alright.
So on paper, you look at the first two matchups, the coordinators. On one hand you have Kevin O’Connell and Brian Flores. On the other hand you have Bowles and Robinson.
Based on how both teams have played the first two weeks of the season, where is your money going?
But before you click “Place Bet” on your HardRock Bet app, check this out, Todd Furhman breath:
Baker Mayfield is 2-0 against a Flores-led defense. Yes, really.
In Mayfield’s second season in the NFL, playing for the Browns, Mayfield was 24 of 34 for 327 yards, three touchdowns and a pick in a 41-24 Browns win in Cleveland when Flores was the Dolphins’ head coach.
Then in 2023, in Mayfield’s first game as a Bucs quarterback, on the road in Minnesota to open the season, Mayfield was 21 of 34 for 173 yards and threw two touchdowns without a pick.
Flores is hailed as a blitzing fool who drives quarterbacks batty and it seems Mayfield has a read on Flores’ blitzes. The trick here is, unlike some defensive coaches who are glazed for their exotic blitzes, at least more often than not Flores backs up his glossing with results, not tired fables.