Buccaneers’ Bowles Gives Former All-SEC QB Edge in Backup Race

Getty Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Kyle Trask.

There’s no doubt who the starting quarterback is going to be for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2024 and what he’s capable of — a far cry from last season when the team was rolling the dice on Baker Mayfield with a 1-year, $4 million contract.

One year later, the Buccaneers have a much firmer grasp of what Mayfield can do after he went 9-8 and threw for career highs of 4,044 passing yards and 28 touchdowns while leading Tampa Bay to a third consecutive NFC South Division title.

Mayfield was good enough to land a 3-year, $100 million contract in March and now has the weight of the franchise on his shoulders. At the same time, it seems the role of Mayfield’s backup is still up for grabs.

Tampa Bay head coach Todd Bowles gave the slight edge for backup quarterback to former Florida quarterback Kyle Trask over John Wolford — both players were on the Buccaneers’ roster in 2023.

“You’ve seen how they play, you’ve seen how they practice,” Bowles said in a video posted to X by Tampa Bay Times reporter Rick Stroud. “Right now, Kyle’s ahead by a little bit, but we still gotta play some games.”

Tampa Bay opens its preseason schedule on Aug. 10 on the road against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Wolford Has Slight Edge in NFL Experience

Trask was named All-SEC for Florida in 2020 after he threw for career highs of 4,328 yards, 43 touchdowns and just 8 interceptions. That season propelled him into the second round of the 2021 NFL draft, where the Buccaneers selected him at No. 64 overall.

Since then, the 6-foot-5 236-pound Trask played behind Tom Brady for his first two seasons. Trask had to swallow his pride as the Buccaneers decided he wasn’t good enough to take over as the starter and brought in Mayfield.

In his first three seasons, Trask has played in just three games with no starts and is 3-of-10 passing for 23 yards, no touchdowns and no interceptions. He’s also in the final year of the 4-year, $5.8 million rookie contract he signed in 2021.

Wolford was a four-year starter for Wake Forest before going undrafted in 2018, getting cut by the New York Jets before starring for the Arizona Hotshots in the short-lived American Alliance of Football in 2019. Wolford spent the 2019 NFL season on the Los Angeles Rams practice squad before making the 53-man roster in 2020 and serving as a backup the next three seasons, including a Super Bowl win following the 2021 season.

Wolford started five games in his three seasons with the Rams and was the first quarterback in NFL history to throw for over 200 yards and rush for over 50 yards in their debut, which he did in a playoff-clinching win over the Arizona Cardinals in Week 17 of the 2020 season. Including the playoffs, Wolford went 2-3 as the starter.

Wolford, Mayfield Were Teammates on Rams

Mayfield and Wolford were actually teammates on the Rams in 2022, with both being called upon at different times to fill in for the injured Matthew Stafford. That season, Wolford went 1-2 as the starter before giving way to Mayfield, who went 1-3 as the starter.