Pickles, of a Different Variety

God, I love Baker Mayfield. He is such a leader, such a good football player. And he’s a huge reason for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers success. Another one of those really good players is Justin Herbert, who happens to play for the opposing Los Angeles Chargers. This is going to be a good matchup. Two teams with winning records, playoff hopes very much alive and not in jeopardy. Let’s look at the Bucs, who lead the NFC South by just won game, but can compete with any team in the league. They have the 3rd best offense in the league, are 6th in passing offense, and 7th in rushing offense. Keep in mind, Chris Godwin has been out for the last 8 games and Rachaad White, their premier back last year, has struggled this year. Luckily, they have a guy named Mike Evans, not sure if you have heard of him, but even more impressive than that, has been the emergence of rookie running back Bucky Irving. A former Oregon Duck, Irving has realistically taken the starting job from White, and while they generally split carries, Irving has come in starting most games this season. The only problem with this team is their defense, which is almost dead last in the league, (28th.) They need to clean up on defense if they want to make a later push in the playoffs that they are more than capable of making.

The Chargers, while still very much alive in their playoff race, find themselves in a slightly tighter pickle than the Bucs do. They just edge out the Broncos in their division standings but need to win games to stay alive. They are going to be fighting the Broncos every week, and this week they have a tougher opponent than the Broncos do, (the Colts.) That being said, anything can happen in the NFL and it’s always the best team that shows up that day, not their record. In order to win this game, the Chargers will need to lean on their defense, which is 11th overall and the backbone of their team, against a high-powered Bucs offense. They will also need to be able to produce on offense, who have averaged only 19 points a game the last three games. In games where Los Angeles scores more than 20 points, they are 6-2. I’m not even going to guess the outcome of this game; it’s way too close. But if you had a gun to my head, I’d say Bucs simply because I believe their ability to score points with general ease, in comparison to most teams, will be the difference in this game.

POSTGAME:

This page is turning into a Baker Mayfield fan page. I don’t really know what else to say. Give a lot of credit to Tampa Bay’s defense, who held Justin Herbert and the Chargers to only 206 yards of total offense, but it was the Buccaneers 506 total yards of offense that was the true difference maker in this game. Baker Mayfield had a cool 288 yards with 4 TDs. The Bucs running back committee, plus Mayfield, ran for 223 yards. It was just a firestorm of offense. And this is what the Bucs need to continue to do as they finish out their season against weaker teams in Dallas, Carolina, and New Orleans. Blow the doors down everybody that steps up to your plate, and the division will be yours, as they are now two games ahead of Atlanta. The Chargers just didn’t have an answer today and were one-dimensional, as their pass game made up almost 85% of their total offense this game. They finished with 32 rushing yards between two running backs. Yikes.