Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield raised eyebrows last week when he suggested Tom Brady’s championship mindset added stress to the team’s locker room.
After Brady responded during the Fox broadcast of the Buccaneers’ win against the Philadelphia Eagles, Mayfield downplayed the remarks when speaking to reporters.
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"I think a lot of that got taken out of context, and none of it was personal by any means," he said, via ESPN. "It's just what he demanded of the guys, and that's the aura of Tom Brady. And that's what he did to bring a championship here.
"Nothing personal, but yeah, talking before the game, he's obviously happy for me and he knows the guys, so he knows how much I enjoy throwing to Mike (Evans) and Chris (Godwin) (because) he got to do the same. It's fun to be able to talk about the same experience with a guy like that."
Mayfield made the initial remarks on the "Casa de Klub" podcast.
"The building was a little bit different with Tom in there," Mayfield said. "Obviously, playing-wise, Tom is different. He had everybody dialed in, high-strung environment. So, I think everybody was pretty stressed out.
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"So, for me, and everybody was expecting the Bucs to not be good last year, they wanted me to come in, be myself, bring the joy back to football a little bit for guys that weren’t having as much fun and just continue to raise the competition level. They just asked me to be myself. As a player, you really can’t ask for much more than that."
Brady was blunt in his response during the game on Sunday, as he watched Mayfield throw two touchdown passes.
"I thought stressful was not having Super Bowl rings," Brady said during the game. "There was a mindset of a champion I took to work every day. This wasn’t day care. If I wanted to have fun, I was gonna go to Disneyland with my kids.
"There’s a way to approach this game and it’s with the right mindset to try to push each other outside of our comfort zones and great teammates do that. I come in, I have someone like (Rob) Gronkowski, I have someone like (Mike) Evans. There’s high expectations for us, we got to make sure we go out there and deliver."
Tampa Bay is 3-1 to start the season.
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