The quarterback position is arguably the most important position on the football field. The ball touches his hands on almost every single play through the course of a game, and it is up to him to make the best decision. It not only takes great talent but also a high football IQ and awareness as he will be looked upon to put the other players around him in the best possible situations to be successful.
In recent interviews with ESPN, Tampa Bay Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht spoke about the importance of a QB and what it takes to make sure that you get the right one.
“Obviously, the quarterback is No. 1,” Tampa Bay Buccaneers GM Jason Licht said. “And if you know in the draft a quarterback is going to be lights-out — like, you know he’s going to be Patrick Mahomes or Joe Burrow — you’d offer literally 10 first-round picks for that guy. It wouldn’t matter. It would be worth it. But it’s such a crapshoot.”
Not every franchise is lucky to land a Mahomes or Burrow, and the same can be said for Licht and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Just two years into his stint as the Bucs GM, Licht drafted former Florida State QB Jameis Winston with the first overall pick in the draft. Things didn’t quite work out between the two sides, and when the greatest quarterback of all-time in Tom Brady entered free agency in 2020, Licht did everything in his power to land him. And he did.
“We had Jameis, it didn’t work out, but then we realized that while we had Jameis we were putting together a pretty good team around him thinking he’d be the guy,” Licht said. “When we decided to move on, it was the team we’d built around Jameis that Brady wanted to be a part of.”
As Licht mentioned, football is still a team sport and that is exactly what proved to be one of the sticking points with Brady as he was on the hunt for his seventh Super Bowl ring. The Buccaneers have now moved on from the Brady era, and along with it many of the key cogs that helped them win that Super Bowl just a few years ago. However, Licht has made sure to keep many of those home grown star players in Tampa Bay while looking to build around his new QB in Baker Mayfield.
Mayfield signed with the Buccaneers last offseason on a one-year prove-it deal, and boy, did he take advantage of it. He lead the Bucs to the playoffs and a Wild Card win over the Philadelphia Eagles. Mayfield was rewarded this offseason with a long-term contract, and with the full belief in him from the front office and coaching staff, the Bucs will be looking to replicate and even improve on the success that they saw last season.
