It’s not all super serious for Baker Mayfield as he begins preparation for Sunday’s game against the Cleveland Browns. There’s actually kind of a surprisingly jovial atmosphere around the Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback and his team.
Mayfield, you see, stepped to the microphone on Wednesday to begin his weekly press conference wearing a University of Michigan basketball tank top.
An ill-fitting one at that.
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Head coach Todd Bowles initially stood in the doorway humming the University of Michigan fight song and shouting, “Let’s go blue!”
“That hurts, that hurts real bad,” Mayfield said. “It’s been a rough couple of days.”
And why would Mayfield be wearing a child-size Michigan tank top?
“Oklahoma versus Michigan,” he explained. “Todd’s son was on the winning side of it. The Sooners were not. And so, therefore, I squeezed into this little tank top.”
Bowles’ son, Troy, plays for the Wolverines. Mayfield played for Oklahoma. So there was some bragging rights involved that led to a friendly wager about the Saturday matchup. But then …
Michigan 17.
Oklahoma 10.
So, quite a funny moment considering the expression on Mayfield’s face.
But that moment could be understood to be perhaps more meaningful in that it speaks to the mindset for the Buccaneers’ quarterback, his coach, and perhaps the team.
The Bucs are 0-1 headed to Sunday’s game against the Browns. And Mayfield in the season-opener struggled in a 33-27 season-opening loss against the Cincinnati Bengals because he didn’t throw a touchdown pass but lost three fumbles, including one around the goal line when it seemed the Bucs would be scoring.
So, actually, that hurts.
It hurts Bowles, who is under some expectation to get his team into the postseason. And it hurts Mayfield, who just last week agreed to a three-year contract extension worth a whopping $165 million and putting him among the league’s highest-paid quarterbacks.
Neither Bowles nor Mayfield met expectation in the regular-season opener. So this week the script needs to flip against the Browns.
There’s more.
Did we mention happy-bet-loser Mayfield played for the Browns from 2018, when he was the NFL’s No. 1 overall draft pick, through the 2021 season?
Mayfield wasn’t such a happy loser when the Browns shipped him to Carolina after deciding Deshaun Watson would be a better fit. Mayfield was actually quite angry at the time.
And Sunday is obviously a pressure-packed opportunity to get some measure of revenge.
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Mayfield better get his retribution while he can in that opportunity. Because he won’t be getting it from another friendly Michigan versus Oklahoma wager anytime soon.
The two schools just completed their two-game home-and-home series and there are no future games scheduled.
