Baker Mayfield Out Again, Giving the Jalon Daniels Experience One More Week

Baker Mayfield is officially sitting out his third straight game with a dislocated throwing thumb, which means we get at least one more week of the Jalon Daniels experience in Tampa Bay.

A dislocated thumb on your throwing hand is the kind of injury that sounds manageable until you actually try to grip a football, at which point your hand politely declines to participate. Mayfield has not practiced since getting banged up in Week 3 against the Minnesota Vikings, snapping a 57-game start streak that proves the guy usually has to be dragged off the field by medical personnel.

"Tom Pelissero reported there is optimism Mayfield will return next week for Tampa Bay's first division game at Carolina."

Instead, the 1-4 Tampa Bay Buccaneers are rolling with Daniels against the Pittsburgh Steelers this Sunday. The undrafted rookie out of Kansas just pulled off a 24-16 upset over the Dallas Cowboys last Thursday, throwing for 189 yards and avoiding the kind of catastrophic turnovers that usually define rookie spot starts.

For anyone trying to handicap this Tampa Bay offense, the math has completely changed. Daniels took just one sack against Dallas and leaned heavily on the run game, letting Bucky Irving chew up 165 yards on the ground. It is a completely different offensive identity than the one that started the year 0-3 under Mayfield.

The real target for Mayfield is Week 7. According to Tom Pelissero, there is optimism the veteran will be ready when the Bucs travel to play the Carolina Panthers for their first NFC South matchup of the year. Offensive coordinator Zac Robinson desperately needs his primary signal-caller back for division play.

If Mayfield can finally grip a football by next week, he reclaims the job and tries to dig Tampa Bay out of the divisional basement. If not, Daniels might just mess around and turn a temporary patch job into a full-blown rookie survival story.