Making bold predictions is part of the game of covering the NFL. Sometimes it involves stat projections, other times it involves season-long projections about teams. Then there are trade projections that don’t often happen and can cause quite a reaction from fans and other media.
On Wednesday, we had one of those within the Bucs football sphere.
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Bleacher Report’s Brad Gagnon made some way-too-early bold trade predictions and one happened to involve Baker Mayfield. In the scenario he plays out for a possible trade, the Bucs would have to come out the gates and fall flat on their face, or suffer a significant injury to make them punt on the season and beyond.
He writes, “. . .if the Tampa Bay Buccaneers fall off a cliff and Baker Mayfield is at the center of that collapse. It’s possible considering the team is generally over the hill and the talented but inconsistent Mayfield tied Cousins with a league-high 16 interceptions in 2024. Could a contender with quarterback issues decide to roll the dice on him taking off following a change of scenery? We won’t speculate on injuries, but the Steelers and Vikings both come to mind in the event that either the Aaron Rodgers experiment blows up quickly or J.J. McCarthy gets off to a horrible start in Minnesota.”
Trading of quarterbacks in today’s NFL is a rare occurrence anymore, especially with the two teams he laid out.
The Vikings drafted J.J. McCarthy a year ago and haven’t seen him play yet. They will not abandon ship that quickly and then pivot to another veteran. As for the Steelers, they have shown they would rather sit on their own system and draft their own players than trade for someone and send away draft picks.
This is quite the scenario, with less than 1% of it happening.
This article originally appeared on Bucs Wire: Mindblowing Baker Mayfield trade idea that would shake up the roster