Is Mayfield Ready To Overcome the Lions Blitz?
Credit: Junfu Han / Imagn Images
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers passed their first test in Week 1, beating up on a Washington Commanders defense that finished dead-last in both total yards and points allowed in 2024. Week 2’s match-up against the Detroit Lions isn’t just a step up in competition, it’s personal.
It’s not just the bitter taste of being eliminated that sticks in the collective craw of Bucs fans. Knowing how close they were to getting to the NFC Championship game. Tampa entered the fourth quarter tied, and a potential game-tying drive was over in two plays after a bad throw by Baker Mayfield.
But that’s enough living in the past. Week 1 was the statement game to show that Liam Coen’s scheme could raise the team’s ceiling from last year. Week 2 is a chance to prove those changes make Tampa a threat to a bonafide contender. Fortunately, Mayfield’s Week 1 performance hints toward him and Coen having the right game plan to exploit the Lions.
Dan Campbell’s ankle-biting defense is coming to town, and they’re bringing a ton of pressure Mayfield’s way. The 2023 Lions were the 10th-heaviest blitzing team, but thanks to stars like Aidan Hutchinson, pressured the quarterback more than any other team. Week 1 continued the aggressive trend, with Detroit sending 14 blitzes (second-most in the NFL) at the Los Angeles Rams’ Matthew Stafford and pressuring him nine times.
In Week 1, blitzing Mayfield did little more than activate his trap card. Washington also threw 14 blitzes at Tampa, but Mayfield took advantage of the Commanders by dining out in the intermediate game. As James Yarcho of the Locked On Bucs Podcast pointed out on Monday, Mayfield threw further down the field when blitzed (an average depth of target of 6.7 yards, as opposed to 5.9 yards when not blitzed). Yarcho also noted that Mayfield went 5-for-7 for 105 yards and two touchdowns on passes that traveled 10 or more yards in the air.
Todd Bowles marveled over Mayfield’s game after the game on Sunday. “He was locked in… Liam did a good job of dialing up plays for him. He threw it to the guys and let them run. If it wasn’t there down the field, he threw it short; if it was there, he threw it down the field.” That level of decision-making, even when being pressured, is going to be a key tool against Detroit.
So, bring it on?
Sure, if Mayfield can keep up that intermediate-to-deep-ball performance against a better pass rush. But the Lions just went against Matthew Stafford — a Hall-of-Famer with generational arm talent — and the Lions didn’t have much problem shutting down those 10-plus-yard passes.
Stafford did some damage against Detroit, but the bulk of it was within 10 yards. The Rams QB cut up the Lions’ defense by going 25-for-31 with 248 of his 317 yards on those shorter throws. When Stafford ventured into that 10-to-20-yard range, his numbers fell to 3-for-8 with 54 yards and an interception.
That’s gotta be concerning for Tampa. Mayfield can’t compare to even a 36-year-old Stafford in terms of talent, but they’re at least similar stylistically. They’re both big, tough quarterbacks who boast strong arms. Both of them are running similar systems — Coen spent the 2022 season as Sean McVay’s (and Stafford’s!) offensive coordinator. Does this mean Mayfield is going to have similar struggles in Week 2?
Not so fast! While we might want to forget the result of the Divisional Round game, we should remember that even without Coen on board, Mayfield largely balled out in the intermediate game against the Lions. On passes from 10-to-20 yards, he went 9-for-11 for 155 yards and a touchdown… but those two incompletions were both interceptions. The final one was brutal, but we can pin the first one on a (rare) Mike Evans miscue. If Evans came down with that ball, we’d be talking about a perfect intermediate game, soured by one bad mistake at the end.
It’s a tough assignment for Mayfield, but that’s what makes this a perfect Week 2 test. Can the QB clean up his mistakes from last year and benefit from Coen and talented rookies like Jalen McMillan, Bucky Irving, and Graham Barton to lift his team over their 2023 tormentors? Whether he can or can’t, it’ll be a useful measuring stick for a team that’s hoping to make some more noise in 2024.
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