A lot of General Managers wouldn’t be thrilled about the prospect of heading into training camp without knowing for sure who will start in Week One, but Buccaneers G.M. Jason Licht says he isn’t one of them.
Licht has never been in that position since being hired by the Bucs in 2014 — Josh McCown gave way to Jameis Winston and Winston gave way to Tom Brady — so the chance to see Baker Mayfield and Kyle Trask compete for the job is a new one for him. During his first press conference of training camp, Licht said he’s excited to see how things unfold over the coming weeks.
“One thing I’m looking forward to is, this is really the first time since I’ve been here, and I’m going on Year 10, of a true quarterback competition,” Licht said, via the team’s website. “One thing I’m looking forward to is just how hyper-focused we’re going to be in those practices here at the beginning of camp for the first few weeks, at least. Just to see who takes the next step forward. People can have in their head, ‘Well, it seems like it’s for sure going to be this person or it’s not going to be this person,’ but until we’re out there, anything can happen. It’s going to be a lot of fun just to really focus on how this is going to play out.”
Mayfield has generally been seen as the favorite to wind up as the starter, but that hasn’t come from Bucs head coach Todd Bowles. Bowles said on Tuesday that he has “a timetable in my head” for when the team will make a call and a heavy focus will remain on the quarterbacks until he does.
