{"id":853567,"date":"2026-04-04T16:56:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T16:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/853567\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T16:56:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T16:56:31","slug":"lavonte-david-baker-mayfield-struggled-with-significant-injuries-joebucsfan-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/853567\/","title":{"rendered":"Lavonte David: Baker Mayfield Struggled With Significant Injuries – JoeBucsFan.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\tLavonte David: Baker Mayfield Struggled With Significant Injuries
\nApril 4th, 2026 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Clearer truths are coming out.<\/p>\n

Why did Baker Mayfield go from MVP candidate in September and October last year to an average-at-best starter in the second half of the season?<\/p>\n

There are lots of reasons, but the extent of Mayfield\u2019s injuries and how they were affecting him were unclear.<\/p>\n

Retired Bucs linebacker Lavonte David shed light on that yesterday during his sitdown with The Arena<\/a>. \u201cTthe season\u2019s over now, I can talk about it,\u201d David said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMan, Baker was going through a lot, bro,\u201d David said. \u201cBaker had a lot of injuries that you didn\u2019t expect a quarterback to play through. You know what I\u2019m saying? He had the oblique injury, he had the shoulder injury, he had a lot of things. You know, ankle injury, knee injury. \u2026 He was really trying to push through and really trying to be the player that we needed him to be.\u201d<\/p>\n

David said he thought Baker played ok late in the season but throwing to rookies and missing key players, including offensive linemen, are massive challenges. David also suspected Emeka Egbuka needed more time to adjust to being the team\u2019s No. 1 receiver and drawing massive attention from defenses.<\/p>\n

Mayfield playing \u201clights out\u201d early in the season and tailing off is an indicator, per David, as to how much he was hurting physically.<\/p>\n

Then former Bucs cornerback Aqib Talib said he could hear in David\u2019s voice that Bucs morale had slipped because of so many injuries and bubbling frustration, including from Todd Bowles. David said he could agree with that sentiment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lavonte David: Baker Mayfield Struggled With Significant Injuries April 4th, 2026 Clearer truths are coming out. Why did…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":853568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2599,2598,7,6,250],"class_list":{"0":"post-853567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-bucs-message-boards","9":"tag-bucs-news","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116347496812999997","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}