“To be honest with you, they were extremely fundamental in the rush integrity in the gaps,” he said. “On top of that, when you have Derrick Barnes as the spy, [it is] not exactly easy because he is lined up over an offensive lineman, so you have to account for him in the pass rush, but he also was really not doing any pressures, so he is just waiting for me to step up. Only a few shots there where I was able to step up and have a free lane to get a throw off, but they did a really good job.”
And the Bucs definitely did not achieve balance in the offense, running a season-low 12 times for 41 yards. Some of that, obviously, had to do with being down two scores in the fourth quarter, but their early-game attempts to run the ball were not productive. Mayfield threw a season-high 50 passes, though as he points out 18 of those came on one very long and ultimately point-less drive in the final period.
“A lot of those passes — a ton of them obviously [came] in that two-minute situation or the 19-play drive,” said Mayfield. “I think the numbers are a little bit more skewed, but yeah, [we] still want to be able to be a little bit more balanced. That is just [because] receivers are going to be tired, offensive line is going to be tired, and with that defensive front, you never want to drop back 50 times. It is not really fair for anybody, but it is just the nature of the game — the way it was flowing. If we can prevent getting into that situation, it would be best.”
The Lions were clearly a difficult opponent and the raucous atmosphere at Ford Field didn’t help the Bucs’ offense either. Now the Bucs head to another dome that has been known to turn up the volume for their Week Eight matchup with the Saints, and Mayfield hopes to have a cleaner and more productive outing this time around.
“Some misses, I think a couple of them maybe not being on time, trying to force it and it ends up being higher than I want it to,” he said of the Detroit effort. “[I] just [have] to be accurate. I think it was just one of those days. [I] was not perfect, and in those games, you have to be closer to perfect than I was.”