It would not take being a fly on the wall to know the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have a different vibe with Baker Mayfield at quarterback compared to their three seasons with Tom Brady at the helm.
Mayfield has now admitted as much publicly, leveling major accusations against the now Fox Sports commentator.
Brady and Mayfield were never teammates in their NFL career, as backing up Brady was never in the cards for the former No 1 overall pick.
Brady’s departure did give Mayfield an NFL lifeline with his fourth team to save his professional career, which he has ran with.
Now, Mayfield appears comfortable enough to spill the team from inside the franchise on what things were like with his predecessor.
Tom Brady played for the Buccaneers for three seasons before retiring for good in early 2023
Baker Mayfield has since taken over as the Buccaneers quarterback and noted the differences
‘You hear some of the stories about if he didn’t like a certain play call and he didn’t like it throughout the week and they still call it in the game, there might have been a throwaway on purpose or throwing it at the running back or receiver’s feet,’ Mayfield said on the Casa De Klub podcast.
‘There’s a lot of mind games going on.’
Mayfield also mentioned how those inside Buccaneers’ headquarters are less ‘stressed out’ than they were when Brady was in the building.
Results do speak for themselves, as Tampa Bay made the playoffs every season with Brady on its roster, winning the Super Bowl in 2021.
That fact is true for the one full season Mayfield was also played for the NFC’s Floridan team, losing in the Divisional round a season ago to the Detroit Lions.
‘The building was a little bit different with Tom in there,’ Mayfield continued. ‘Obviously, playing-wise, Tom is different. He had everybody dialed in, high-strung environment, so I think everybody was pretty stressed out.’
Mayfield and the Buccaneers are riding high so far this season at 2-0, welcoming one of the league’s worst teams thus far, the Broncos, to Tampa Bay on Sunday.
