After three straight trips to the playoffs and a Super Bowl win in 2020, Tom Brady retired, leaving the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with a quarterback controversy heading into training camp.
But one analyst believes that quarterback isn’t the only issue the Bucs are dealing with right now. Appearing on NFL Total Access, analyst David Carr said that while he expects Baker Mayfield to win the starting job, Mayfield won’t be enough to solve all of Tampa Bay’s impending problems.
Carr said that Brady “covered up” a lot of issues within the Bucs with his superb play over three years. Specifically, the one area that Brady tends to cover that other quarterbacks can’t is blocking assignments.
Carr noted that proper blocking assignments is historically one of his specialties and that offensive linemen often go from elite to average after they stop working with Brady.
David Carr: Tom Brady Hid Major Holes https://t.co/Afor3qUex4
— JoeBucsFan (@JoeBucsFan) June 19, 2023
Carr may have a point there. While Brady took sacks on the lowest percentage of snaps over the past two seasons, Baker Mayfield seemingly can’t avoid pressure. Mayfield has been sacked 79 times in the past two years alone – an average of 9.5-percent of dropbacks, among the highest rate in the league.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had three Pro Bowl offensive linemen in 2021 and one in 2022. It will be interesting to see if the offensive line performs as well for Mayfield as it did for Tom Brady.
