The Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Las Vegas Raiders on Sunday, 28-13, and quarterback Baker Mayfield threw for 295 yards and three touchdowns. His stat line was blemished a bit by two interceptions and a lost fumble, but he still walked out of the game with a 101.9 passer rating. He tied his career high in touchdown passes (28) with four games to go and completed passes of 20 or more yards to four different players, three of them in the critical fourth quarter. The Buccaneers took what had been a close game after three quarters and put it away with two long touchdown drives in the final period.
It was objectively a good day for the Buccaneers and for Mayfield, and even if there were some warts Tampa Bay got the win it very much needed. Mayfield didn't lose sight of that fact after the game, but he did suggest the offense will have perform better over the last four games for the Bucs to achieve their postseason goals.
"We will take wins," said Mayfield. "I don't really care how it looks, but offensively, we will have to be a lot more consistent for us to able to make this push that we want to do, and we know that. That's why there are more games left. There is a lot of ball left, and we have to continue to get better."
Mayfield called himself "by far … the worst player on offense" on Sunday, though many would surely disagree after another gutsy performance. The Bucs ended up with 420 yards of offense and Mayfield stepped up in the fourth quarter when the game was on the line. Head Coach Todd Bowles drew a distinction between Mayfield's overall numbers, noting the three giveaways in particular, and what the quarterback did to help get the win.
View the postgame celebration of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' regular season Week 14 win vs. the Las Vegas Raiders
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"Anytime you turn it over three times, that's going to be tough," said Bowles. "That's going to be tough to say he played well, but you've got to play winning football. We're not going to be perfect but we have to play winning football, determined football. We didn't play winning football in the first half, we played it in the second half."
The Bucs did start the game off well, and Mayfield was eight for nine for 87 yards on the first two drives, both of which ended in touchdowns. All three of his turnovers occurred in the second quarter, including an interception thrown into the end zone near halftime that killed a scoring threat. He only threw four passes in the third quarter thanks largely to a 10-plus minute Raiders drive that ended, thankfully, in a Tykee Smith interception. But he caught fire in the fourth quarter and the Bucs ran away with the game.
"It doesn't have to be pretty," said Mayfield. "Obviously, there are a lot of things that I would personally like to have back, but it's a resilient group. We play for each other. Guys step up when other people are down and that's what football is all about– it teaches you life lessons."
For Mayfield, the lesson on Sunday was that the Bucs did enough on offense to win comfortably against the Raiders, but that may not be enough in any of the last four weeks. The goal moving forward is consistency from quarter to quarter, half to half and game to game.
