Reliable Bucs Reporter Claims Baker Mayfield Will Be Tampa's Starter Week 1 In Minnesota Despite A Heavy Push From Kyle Trask In Training Camp

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This is interesting and comes from a guy who is pretty plugged in, JoeBucsFans' Ira Kaufman, who has been covering the team since 1985 and is the team's Hall of Fame voter. Ira has been early on other stories like Bruce Arians' hire, so this report is pretty interesting.

“About this Trask and Mayfield competition, I was told pointedly and without much doubt, Mayfield’s going to be the starter in Minneapolis,” Kaufman said. “That’s what I was told. With all due respect to Trask, who has had a good training camp and Mayfield’s struggled a bit, Mayfield’s getting the ball in Minneapolis." 

“When it was told to me [that Mayfield would start Week 1] it was said in a definitive manner,” Kaufman said. “There was no equivocation. It wasn’t even said, ‘Well, depending on it could change in the preseason games; let’s see what happens.’ No, none of that. It was basically, ‘It’s Mayfield’s job. He’s got it. He’s going to be the starter against Kirk Cousins and those Vikings.’”  - via JoeBucsFan.com

This is interesting for a few reasons:

1) Bucs HC Todd Bowles and new OC Dave Canales pointed out that whoever turned the ball over the least in pre-season and training camp would likely get the nod as the starter. To this point, Mayfield has more than double the interceptions as Trask.

2) Trask is going into year 3. His first two years were under Tom Brady and he was nothing better than QB3. He's clearly still very green as he got limited reps the past few years, but has really grown in training camp from where he started. Canales even said in his last presser a week ago that Trask has really closed the gap and it's a real competition now after Mayfield came out with the lead early.

3) Bowles is on the hot seat this year after a rough first year as Head Coach a disappointing 8-9 season which they barely won a pathetic division only to get blown out in the playoffs.

With Bowles clearly coaching for his job, going with a veteran vs. an unproven young guy makes sense. But is this report true? Many Bucs reporters are flat out denying it. 

The Bucs will play tonight in their pre-season opener vs. the Pittsburgh Steelers and both Quarterbacks will play with Mayfield getting the nod to start. Bowles has stated as recently as this week whoever starts this game will not start the next game, so it would appear it's still an open competition. We'll see if Baker can do anything to further assure his spot atop the Bucs' depth chart tonight.