I doubt that I’ll be selecting Chris Godwin in any draft this year. Nice player, but I don’t know that Tampa Bay has a quarterback who can get him the ball. I think that offense will be taking a big step back.
The Bucs have averaged a league-high 304 passing yards over the last four years, but that was with Tom Brady and Bruce Arians leading the charge. It’s a new offense now, with a new coordinator and a new quarterback. Will the Bucs average even 220 passing yards this year? I can’t guarantee that they will.
They’ve got Baker Mayfield and Kyle Trask at quarterback for now, and neither has shown much potential to put up average passing numbers. Trask hasn’t played much in his first two seasons; I was re-watching some of his preseason throws last year, and he reminded me of Davis Mills.
Most likely Mayfield will be their opening day starter, but he’s struggled to get his career launched. He’s been in the league for five years, and he’s remarkably averaged fewer passing yards in each season. Hard to envision him getting Godwin rolling.
It can be argued, I think, that DJ Moore is a Godwin-type receiver. Moore played six games with Mayfield last year, catching 20 passes for 221 yards and a touchdown in those weeks. Mayfield just couldn’t get him the ball.
In Mayfield’s four seasons, only four wide receivers have finished with top-50 numbers. I see only one season where a wide receiver caught 6 TDs, and one where a receiver caught 5 TDs.
Godwin sucked up a lot of balls last year. After an early-season hamstring injury, he came back and caught 111 passes in his final 15 games. But that kind of production looks wildly out of range. In Mayfield’s four seasons in Cleveland, I see only two receivers finishing with more than 74 catches. Jarvis Landry (who operates in the same part of the field as Godwin) caught 81 and 83 passes in the 2018-19 seasons.
| BAKER MAYFIELD'S RECEIVERS IN CLEVELAND | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Player | G | Rec | Yds | TD | PPR | Rk |
| 2019 | Jarvis Landry | 16 | 83 | 1174 | 6 | 237.4 | 12 |
| 2018 | Jarvis Landry | 16 | 81 | 976 | 4 | 219.8 | 18 |
| 2019 | Odell Beckham | 16 | 74 | 1035 | 4 | 203.5 | 25 |
| 2020 | Jarvis Landry | 15 | 72 | 840 | 3 | 188.7 | 33 |
| 2021 | Jarvis Landry | 12 | 52 | 570 | 2 | 137.0 | 52 |
| 2018 | Antonio Callaway | 16 | 43 | 586 | 5 | 134.3 | 54 |
| 2020 | Rashard Higgins | 13 | 37 | 599 | 4 | 120.9 | 63 |
| 2018 | Rashard Higgins | 13 | 39 | 572 | 4 | 120.2 | 61 |
| 2021 | Donovan Peoples-Jones | 14 | 34 | 597 | 3 | 111.7 | 63 |
| 2020 | Odell Beckham | 7 | 23 | 319 | 3 | 87.0 | 92 |
| 2018 | Breshad Perriman | 10 | 16 | 340 | 2 | 62.2 | 103 |
| 2020 | Donovan Peoples-Jones | 12 | 14 | 304 | 2 | 58.4 | 110 |
| 2021 | Rashard Higgins | 15 | 24 | 275 | 1 | 57.5 | 114 |
| 2019 | Damion Ratley | 13 | 12 | 200 | 1 | 38.0 | 127 |
| 2021 | Anthony Schwartz | 14 | 10 | 135 | 1 | 33.4 | 138 |
| 2020 | KhaDarel Hodge | 9 | 11 | 180 | 0 | 29.0 | 146 |
| 2018 | Damion Ratley | 13 | 13 | 144 | 0 | 27.4 | 148 |
| 2019 | Antonio Callaway | 4 | 8 | 89 | 0 | 16.9 | 152 |
| 2019 | Rashard Higgins | 10 | 4 | 55 | 1 | 15.5 | 155 |
| 2019 | KhaDarel Hodge | 16 | 4 | 76 | 0 | 11.6 | 163 |
| 2020 | JaMarcus Bradley | 3 | 5 | 60 | 0 | 11.0 | 178 |
—Ian Allan