TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – With Tom Brady as the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ starting quarterback the past three seasons and Jameis Winston their starter for the five seasons before that, it’s been quite some time since the Bucs had a true competition for the starting quarterback position. But the time has come, with Kyle Trask and Baker Mayfield competing for that role.
Mayfield has the NFL game reps under his belt and Trask already has chemistry with several of his Bucs offensive teammates—so who’s going to emerge from training camp as the Bucs starting quarterback? Both QBs spoke with the media Thursday after day two of training camp and weighed in on the push for that starting spot.
“To me, competition always brings the best out in anybody,” Mayfield said. “You want to have somebody pushing you to be better. You want to have somebody who is going to challenge you and bring a different aspect to it.
But in the midst of the competition is camaraderie, making sure they’re all getting better for the benefit of the team.
“Competition-wise, we’re trying to make the QB room as good as possible,” Mayfield said. “I’ve always said the franchise will go as the QB room does – how they gel, how they get everybody, how they communicate, how they get everybody on the same page, how they lead. So, right now, like I said, I‘m going to approach each day the same, no matter what position I’m in. I am going to try to get everybody better. I’m still going to be me. I’m still going to work my tail off to obviously start – that’s the goal, but to get everybody else better around me, to raise that competition level and that standard as well.”
“The quarterback room as a whole has been doing a great job of just spinning ideas off each other,” Trask said. “As cliché as it sounds, we’re not really competing against each other. Obviously, on the outside, there’s its own perspective, but as cliché, as it sounds, you just want to compete with yourself and make sure you’re progressing every single day. Everyone is going to make different mistakes, so we all can get better at different things. The key to a good competition is everyone is just trying to better themselves every single day. That’s been my main focus.”
The growth aspect will be key throughout camp and into the preseason as the coaches continue their evaluation, which encompasses the stats as well as the intangibles.
“Throwing the football is just part of it,” said Bucs head coach Todd Bowles. “The mental part and that aspect of the game and the adjustment part and the audible part and the command part and the things you have to do on the field is a huge part of it too […] You’ve got to know when to have guts and when to not have guts and that’s just a [feeling]. You see that over time. We understand that and we’re just taking it day by day.”
This all leads to the question: When will the Bucs name their starting quarterback?
“That’s out of my hands,” Trask responded after being asked when he wants coach Bowles to name the starter. “That’s a question for [Bowles]. I don’t know. I’m just focused on my development, and that’s all I can do.”
