ESPN analyst suggests Bucs' Baker Mayfield may be 'sorta shaky' ahead of 2025
ESPN analyst suggests Bucs' Baker Mayfield may be 'sorta shaky' ahead of 2025
The NFL dominates almost an entire calendar year's worth of headlines. Of course, there are all the happenings of the regular season starting in September through the culmination of the season with the Super Bowl in February, and every sort of power ranking you could think of every week.
For some, there is no rest for the wicked because free agency opens in March. Which, of course, means post-free-agency power rankings and grades. As that is going on, we are preparing for the NFL Draft in April. Which leads into watching college game film, understanding a team's needs, creating at least 400 mock drafts each year, and debating it with anyone who will listen.
What happens after the Draft? Grades and power rankings. April is also the month when minicamp begins, with rookie minicamp starting in May and running through OTAs and mandatory minicamp in June.
June 19th is the last day for remaining teams to hold their mandatory minicamps, which naturally means that this provides more opportunities to grade and rank teams because we really don't do that enough. On The Mina Kimes Show featuring Lenny, ESPN's Kimes and Ben Sloak ranked their Top 10 offenses heading into the 2025 NFL season; they each had the Bucs sliding in at ten and seven, respectively.
Kimes said that she watched more of the Bucs from last season than any other team to try and prep, because the numbers last season were "so insane for them and it feels slept on for how good they were last year." So why the ranking so low for a team that had one of the most prolific offenses in 2024, returning all 11 starters, and added a first-round pick at wide receiver in Emeka Egbuka in the Draft? Is it because Mike Evans is a year older, and Chris Godwin is coming off a brutal ankle injury? Nope.
"I have to ding them for sorta shaky quarterback," Kimes said of Baker Mayfield. "He's good, I'm just saying, that and the loss of the coordinator [Coen], so that was it for me," she continued. As we know, Mayfield loves it when the media discredits his body of work, and is always looking for a reason to play with a chip on his shoulder. Maybe there is a bit of natural regression down from the 4, 500 yards, 41 touchdowns, and 16 interceptions due to the Coen leaving for Jacksonville.
It's a safe bet that Mayfield will still fall into the Top 10 range simply because there are too many offensive weapons on the Buccaneers roster, paired with one of the best offensive lines in the league, for the Bucs offense to hang on to a Top 10 position by a thread.
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