The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were called for five false starts in their loss to the Chicago Bears in Week 9. Quarterback Baker Mayfield said that he did not know what caused the team to commit so many pre-snap penalties, as that was not how the team typically plays.
Mayfield did not accept responsibility for the team making the errors as much as he took a shot at the opponent.
“To be honest with you, I don’t know,” said Mayfield on why the team had so many false startse start penalties. “The last one. I know they’re barking out the cadence. Which you can’t do that. So it’s tough for the refs to call that because they’re not right there at the line of scrimmage. But yeah, I think they called that on Tristan, but that’s, you can’t do that.”
Mayfield did not seem happy with the way the Bears defensive line acted in between snaps.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers QB Baker Mayfield Blames Chicago Bears for False Start Penalties
Head coach Todd Bowles did not throw the blame on the opponent. He noted that it was not a communication issue within the team, though.
“It wasn’t a communication thing,” Bowles said post-game. “We just got to hold our water.”
Whether the team was jumping because of the calls from the Bears defensive line or if they were undisciplined, Bowles did not care about the reason. He knows his team needs to be cleaner.
The team also committed two delay-of-game penalties that turned chances to go for it into field goal attempts.
Buccaneers Need to Clean Up Penalties
After starting the season 0-3, the Bucs started to turn the season around. They went 1-2 with Jalon Daniels as the quarterback and then went 2-0 in the first two starts with Mayfield. However, after the slow start, the team is now 3-6 after their loss.
The good news is that the rest of the NFC South is not running away with the division either. It looks like it is going to go down to the wire even if the Bucs lost. The team has a bye-week before a big matchup against the Detroit Lions in week 11.
Baker Mayfield Makes Strong Accusation About Bears in Loss