Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield insists he meant no disrespect to former Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady on a recent podcast when he commented about the Brady’s time in Tampa. Mayfield said after the 33-16 win over the Eagles that he was misinterpreted.
Brady responded to Mayfield during the Fox broadcast, his first time back in Tampa calling a Bucs game.
“I think a lot of that got taken out of context, and none of it was personal by any means,” Mayfield said, via Jenna Laine of ESPN. “It’s just what he demanded of the guys, and that’s the aura of Tom Brady, and that’s what he did to bring a championship here.
“Nothing personal, but yeah, talking before the game, he’s obviously happy for me and he knows the guys, so he knows how much I enjoy throwing to Mike [Evans] and Chris [Godwin] because he got to do the same. It’s fun to be able to talk about the same experience with a guy like that.”
Mayfield appeared on the Casa de Klub podcast and told Corey Kluber and Tyler Casagrand that Brady’s intensity stressed out the locker room.
“The building was a little bit different with Tom in there,” Mayfield said on the podcast. “Obviously, playing-wise, Tom is different. He had everybody dialed in, high-strung environment, so I think everybody was pretty stressed out. . . . They wanted me to come in, be myself, bring the joy back to football, for guys who weren’t having as much fun.”
Brady made no apologies for the attitude he brought to Tampa.
“I thought stressful was not having Super Bowl rings,” Brady said on the broadcast. “So there was a mindset of a champion I took to work every day. This wasn’t day care. If I wanted to have fun I was gonna go to Disneyland with my kids. . . . There’s a way to approach this game, and that’s with the right mindset and try to push each other outside of our comfort zone and great teammates do that. You come in, I have someone like [Rob] Gronkowski, I have someone like [Mike] Evans. There’s high expectations for us. We’ve got to make sure we go out there and deliver.”
Mayfield laughed when told after the game about Brady’s “daycare” comment.
“Like I said -- some things got taken out of context,” Mayfield said. “He did it his own way, and that’s why he has seven rings. So, not much else needs to be said.”