Cover 9@9: How Tampa Bay quarterback Baker Mayfield salvaged his career

After falling out of favor in Cleveland after four seasons, Mayfield split the 2022 season between the Panthers and Rams. He signed a one-year, make good, deal with the Bucs last season.

After guiding the Bucs to their third consecutive NFC South title and to the playoffs, Mayfield signed a three-year, $115 million contract over the offseason.

“Baker is a really good quarterback,” Bates said. “I’ve played against him when I was in Cleveland for my first four years.”

The Browns, who selected Mayfield No. 1 overall in the 2018 NFL draft, elected not re-sign him after the 2021.

“I always thought he was just a really good quarterback,” Bates said. “A lot of his situations in Cleveland didn’t help him. I always thought highly of him. I always thought that he was a gamer.”

Mayfield went 6-7, 6-10, 11-5 and 6-8 with the Browns.

In 2022, he went 1-5 with the Panthers and 1-3 with the Rams.

He led the Bucs to a 9-8 record last season, and they beat the Eagles in the playoffs.

“He’s a Heisman (Trophy) winner for a reason,” Bates said. “(Rams coach) Sean McVay and those guys kind of go him back on track. Went to the Bucs, and he’s done a really good job getting those guys to the playoffs and eliminating turnovers and getting the ball to Mike Evans.”

Falcons offensive coordinator Zac Robinson was the Rams’ pass-game coordinator/quarterbacks coach in 2022 when they signed Mayfield after a rash of injuries.

“Love Baker,” Robinson said. “Great competitor. I always liked watching him at Oklahoma. I went to Oklahoma State. So, a natural rivalry there. ... He’s a really talented player. Really talented thrower. Just has every throw at his disposable.”

Bates has been sharing tips with his teammates.

“The thing that he’s doing really well is that he gets the ball out pretty fast as well,” Bates said. “That just goes (to show) how smart he is, how much experience he has and how much that really shows when playing against Baker Mayfield.”

The Bucs quarterback also will run. He has two rushing touchdowns this season.

“He’s almost like a dual quarterback as well,” Bates said. “He likes to use his feet a little bit more when it’s a ‘got-to-have-it’ situation. But I’m excited for the challenge.”

2. Bucs rushing attack: The Falcons are expecting the Bucs to try to run the ball against them. The Falcons are giving up 145.5 yards per game, which ranks tied for 25th in the NFL.

The Bucs’ rushing attack is led by running backs Bucky Irving and Rachaad White. The Bucs average 96 yards rushing per game, which ranks 25th in the league.

“I thought (Irving) popped off the tape,” Bates said. “He just is explosive. He’s almost like their Bijan Robinson almost. He does a lot of the RPO (run-pass option), moving around, orbit motions and stuff. I think that he’s super dynamic with the ball in his hands. Just limiting him and making sure that we tackle him in space will be key.”

3. Focus on penalties: After having nine penalties for 76 yards against the Saints, the Falcons are focusing on eliminating them before they play the Bucs.

“Coach (Raheem Morris), he talked about it in our team meeting (Tuesday),” Bates said. “Penalties are something that we can control. Usually, I think it’s a lack some type of concentration, some type of discipline or you’re tired. Some type of fatigue. Just being able to figure out what those penalties are, lock in on them. Make sure that we don’t get them.”

The Falcons had a drive-killing face-mask penalty called on left guard Matthew Bergeron and had an apparent touchdown called back on an holding call on left tackle Jake Matthews against the Saints.

“After it happens, it happens,” Bates said. “Whether you did it or you didn’t do it, it was called. You’ve got to fix it. It was a huge conversation that (Morris) has (had with the team). It’s big. You have to keep guys on track. I think our offense, when they are on track, they are one of the best offenses in the league.”

The Falcons have 28 penalties for 194 yards on the season and are on pace for a whopping 119 penalties. Last season, the Jets led the league with 124 penalties.

4. Prepping for the Bucs: Defensive tackle Grady Jarrett is looking forward to facing the Bucs.

“Prep is going good, but it’s going fast,” Jarrett said. “We’ve got a short week. We have to (squeeze) a lot of preparation into a couple of days, a couple of hours. It’s a good challenge.”

5. Latest big tackle: The Bucs have defensive tackle Vita Vea up front.

“I mean, Vita Vea, dealing with him, whether you’ve got injuries or not, he’s a problem, right?” Morris said. “We’ve seen T.J. Watt. We’ve seen Chris Jones. We’ve seen …. Eagles, (Jalen) Carter. I mean, every week there’s going to be somebody that comes in that’s just a problem.”

6. Long drives: The Falcons are aware that the long drives are starting to mount.

After three more drives of 10 plays or more Sunday, the defense now has endured 15 drives of 10 plays or more through four games.

Opponents have scored on 11 of those drives: six field goals and five touchdowns.

“The first thing is we don’t want them to score a touchdown, that’s the very first thing,” Morris said. “We would love to go three-and-out. We’d love to actually go one-and-out. It would be nice to be one play, and we get an interception or recover a fumble. Overall, we’ve got to be better on first and second down.”

Teams have been able to gash the Falcons on first down and get a lot of favorable down and distances. The Saints averaged 5.7 yards per play over 30 first downs.

“We’ve been in 10 third-and-1s or fourth-and-1s,” Morris said. “It is extremely difficult in this league to stop an offense to gain 1 yard. We’ve gone two out of 10 on those 10. We’ve won two of them, lost eight of them.”

Playing stouter on first down is the key.

“And now the percentages get in your favor when you can get into the third-and-5s, third-and-6s, the third-and-12s, the third-and-15s,” Morris said. “That becomes harder for our opponent, and it becomes easier for our defense to be able to execute and get off the grass.”

The Falcons want to cut down those long drives.

“We’ll continue to evolve, starting with the coaches to make sure we do a better job of executing those and getting off the field and giving the ball back to our offense,” Morris said.

7. Series history: This will be the 62nd meeting between the teams. The Falcons lead the series 31-30. Last season the series was split, with the Falcons winning 16-13 in Tampa on Oct. 22, 2023 and the Bucs winning 29-25 in Atlanta on Dec. 10, 2023.

8. Where to watch, listen, livestream: What you should know about Thursday’s game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (3-1) and the Falcons (2-2), which is set for 8:15 p.m. at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

TV: Prime Video and Fox 5 (in Atlanta) – Play-by-Play: Al Michaels. Analysis: Kirk Herbstreit. Sideline: Kaylee Hartung.

Local radio: 92.9 The Game. Play-by-play: Wes Durham. Analysis: Dave Archer. Executive producer: Beau Morgan. Engineer: Jake Cook. Pregame/Postgame show – Hosts: Chris Goforth and Mike Johnson. Dylan Matthews and Orin Romain (studio producers). Dylan Matthews (network studio producer) and Chris Thomas (local studio producer).

National radio: Westwood One. Play-by-Play: Ian Eagle. Analysis: Derek Rackley

Satellite radio: SiriusXM NFL Radio. Falcons channel 225, 829. Bucs channel 226, 801 and on the APP.

Livestream: Streaming inside the Atlanta market: Fans in the Atlanta market can stream the game on the Atlanta Falcons app. NFL app (subscription required). Out of the country: GamePass International. There are several other subscription services.

9. Depth chart: Here’s a look at the Falcons’ official 53-man depth chart heading into Thursday’s game with the Bucs, which is set for 8:15 p.m. at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Here’s the depth chart:

OFFENSE

QB: Kirk Cousins, Michael Penix Jr.

RB: Bijan Robinson, Tyler Allgeier, Avery Williams, Jase McClelland

WR: Drake London

WR: Darnell Mooney, Casey Washington

SWR: Ray-Ray McCloud, KhaDarel Hodge

TE: Kyle Pitts

TE: Charlie Woerner, Ross Dwelley

LT: Jake Matthews, Brandon Parker

LG: Matthew Bergeron, Elijah Wilkinson

C: Ryan Neuzil, Jovaughn Gwyn

RG: Chris Lindstrom, Kyle Hinton

RT: Kaleb McGary, Storm Norton

DEFENSE

ROLB: Lorenzo Carter, James Smith-Williams, DeAngelo Malone

DE: Grady Jarrett, Kentavious Street, Eddie Goldman

NT: David Onyemata, Ruke Orhorhoro

DE: Zach Harrison, Ta’Quon Graham, Brandon Dorlus

LOLB: Matthew Judon, Arnold Ebiketie

IL: Kaden Elliss, JD Bertrand

ILB: Troy Andersen

LCB: A.J. Terrell, Kevin King

RCB: Mike Hughes, Clark Phillips III

NCB: Dee Alford, Antonio Hamilton Sr.

SS: Justin Simmons, Richie Grant

FS: Jessie Bates III, Micah Abernathy

Special teams

K: Younghoe Koo

P: Bradley Pinion

LS: Liam McCullough

KR: Ray-Ray McCloud, Mike Hughes

PR: Avery Williams, Mike Hughes