Backup plan: Jets' Tyrod Taylor, Bucs' Baker Mayfield know the importance of staying ready
Jets quarterback Tyrod Taylor and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield. Credit: Jim McIsaac: AP/Eric Gay
FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — Tyrod Taylor and Baker Mayfield will be the opposing quarterbacks on Sunday when the Jets face the Buccaneers in Tampa. Their shared history goes back much further than this game.
In 2018, Taylor was the starter for the Browns and Mayfield was the first overall pick and Heisman winner waiting for his chance to play. That opportunity came in Week 3 — against the Jets, by the way, and a team that was coached by Todd Bowles, who now coaches Mayfield and the Bucs — when Taylor left the game in the second quarter with a concussion.
Mayfield stepped in, made his debut, and led the Browns to a 21-17 comeback win that snapped their 19-game winless streak. Taylor didn’t start another game that year.
“He’s an awesome guy,” Mayfield said of Taylor on Wednesday in Tampa. “A really good leader. A veteran presence that was instrumental for me in the midst of a chaotic first year in Cleveland and somebody I relied on a lot. A ton of respect for him for the way he is able to command and operate. . . . He’s played a lot of ball, been everywhere, different systems. It’ll be a good matchup.”
Taylor said he and Mayfield haven’t remained in close contact. Who can blame them? Between the two they’ve had a combined seven changes of address since they were teammates, zig-zagging across the league in various roles with various expectations. It can be hard to keep up with someone with such a nomadic career.
“Watching from afar I am proud of the way he’s been able to handle himself,” Taylor did say of Mayfield on Wednesday.
Saturday will be the seventh anniversary of that game in which they swapped roles and paths and, perhaps, football destinies. Mayfield is now one of the top quarterbacks in the league for a 2-0 Bucs team that has pulled out a pair of exciting victories with last-minute touchdowns. Taylor is making his first start for the winless Jets in his second season as the team’s primary backup; starter Justin Fields was ruled out on Wednesday with a concussion he suffered against the Bills this past Sunday.
Taylor has made a fine and very lucrative career as a veteran backup since those days in Cleveland. The key to that, he tells anyone who will listen, is to be ready to play. That is probably the advice he gave Mayfield in 2018 . . . and it remains sage wisdom now in the Jets' locker room where another rookie far less decorated and ballyhooed than Mayfield was has also gotten a promotion due to Fields’ injury.
“It’s an opportunity,” undrafted Jets practice-squadder Brady Cook told Newsday of his new presumed role as QB2 as a gameday elevation. “This will be my first week active. What I can focus on is watching Tyrod take his reps this week, getting my own reps after practice, and just making sure I am ready. On Sunday, if something happens, he goes down, his helmet pops off, he’s got to come out for whatever reason — his shoe comes untied — I’ll make sure I am ready to go, period.”
He'd better be because while Taylor is one of the most reliable backups in the league he also has an injury history that tends to lead to NFL debuts. There was the concussion that put Mayfield on the field in 2018, and then in 2020 he had a rib injury (along with an errant injection from a team doctor that resulted in a scary punctured lung with the Chargers) that led to Justin Herbert making his first start.
Then, with the Giants in 2023, in yet another game against the Jets, it was a concussion that led to a different undrafted and untested rookie having to enter the game: Tommy DeVito.
Certainly no one is expecting or rooting for another malady to befall Taylor on Sunday, but he is not exactly the Iron Horse of the NFL and at age 36 a lot can go wrong. The Jets know that. Cook knows that too.
That’s why after he was told on Wednesday morning that Fields will miss Sunday’s game and he will be the backup he called his parents and fiancé.
“I got to tell them ‘Hey, I’m going to be dressing out this weekend,’” he said of his first chance to don an NFL uniform (like the other practice squad players he was in street clothes for the first two games). “That was pretty cool.”
It was followed by other cool experiences. He took all of the scout team reps during practice on Wednesday. Was part of the game-planning meetings with the coaches throughout the day. And he even got to grab a few practice snaps with the starters.
“It’s cool,” he said with a giggle. “There’s nothing like a football huddle, especially at this level, that’s for sure.”
He may never see one in a game situation. Or it may come along at some point on Sunday.
Mayfield and Herbert, both first-round picks, were bound to eventually become starters in the NFL whether Taylor got hurt when he did as their teammates or not. DeVito, though, would likely have remained a widely anonymous quasi-quarterback had he not been prepared to grab his helmet when the time came. He is currently the backup for the Patriots and a cultural touchstone with several national commercial campaigns.
Now, Cook will be the next-man-up for the Jets on Sunday, and possibly next in a long line of next-men-up who have gotten their big chances behind Taylor.
“When you are on the practice squad that’s why you prepare, why you stay in shape,” Cook said. “You want to be here for this type of opportunity. I’m excited for Tyrod, excited to watch him play. I know he’s going to have a hell of a game.
“And I’ll be ready if needed.”
Just like Taylor told Mayfield, Herbert, DeVito and him to be.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
