Injuries are even bigger enemies for a team than their actual opponents. Moreover, having your QB injured is even worse. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are going through something similar. Not only is the team’s QB Baker Mayfield injured but also the team is coming off a loss against the silent-season-dominators, Detroit Lions.

In addition to that, the loss was a brutal one. The Buccaneers scored only 3 against the Lions’ 20. The loss has presented itself as a major wake-up call, as the Bucs are spiraling downwards after a good start in the season.

QB Baker Mayfield has a bloody finger

The 3-2 Buccaneers running QB suffered a left-hand contusion this Sunday against the Lions. Even though the injured hand isn’t his throwing hand, it still makes his job tough, affecting simple things like passing the ball. Yet to the relief of the fans as well as the team, the QB’s left hand’s X-ray came back negative for any major damages. Hence, Mayfield can continue with his regular practice if his bloodied finger allows him to.

However, if it doesn’t, then it can turn out to be a problem for the team. As the team is already coming off a loss, they need all the hands they can get to make a good score. Looking at Mayfield’s 206 yards and completed 19 passes of his 37, which totals to just over a 50 percent completion rate in the previous games, it leaves no doubt that the Buccaneers need him.

How will Mayfield’s injury affect the Buccaneers?

One of the best qualities an athlete can have is ownership. And Mayfield is surely one of them. The Bucs QB isn’t the one to blame the loss on his injury. Taking complete ownership of the ugly loss, Mayfield said, “At some point, we need to get pissed off as an offense. We should be scoring a lot more points. I think the defense and special teams did an amazing job yet again and offense we’ve just got to pick our sh-t up.”

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Even Though the team leads the NFC South division Board, it isn’t perfect, no one is. But publically admitting the team’s weakness, now that’s some true winning attitude from the starting QB. As Mayfield already mentioned, the team’s defense is pretty solid with Vita Viea backing it up, who also backed the team up when they won Super Bowl LV. However, the team needs to work on its shortcomings collectively, if they want a chance at the wild card match-up.

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