NFC Notes: Buccaneers, Falcons, Panthers

Buccaneers

Bucs QB Baker Mayfield has a lot of confidence in OC Dave Canales and has taken to his coaching style where players are given freedom to learn from their mistakes.

“I have all of the confidence in the world, but like we talked about earlier, I think we’re both getting thrown in the fire going against a Todd Bowles defense for the first time running this system and the first time he is calling it,” Mayfield said via Bucs Wire. “I think this is great work. We’re doing a lot of ‘call it’ periods where it is unscripted, and he is having to talk about formations, personnel and different things like that. It’s great for everybody to get a feel for how he wants to call it. Then there is also the learning curve and that is what this time of year is all about. I have the utmost confidence in him.”

Falcons

Falcons RB Cordarrelle Patterson spoke about adding more touchdowns to his kick return record and is looking forward to playing alongside first-round RB Bijan Robinson. 

“I need to get to 10,” Patterson said, via Michael Rothstein of ESPN. “I need to just try to separate myself from a lot of people.”

“It’s going to be a fun year. It’s going to be fun. I’m glad we got him,” Patterson added. “He just brings that much to this offense. We wouldn’t have drafted him if we didn’t need him at the position. So we got him and he’s going to do great for us.”

Panthers

Retired Panthers WR Steve Smith gave his opinion on second-round WR Jonathan Mingo and what the differences were in their skillsets.

“Jonathan Mingo—he’s . . . uh . . . I don’t know how tall he is because everybody’s taller than me,” Smith joked, via PanthersWire.com. “But he’s 222 pounds, and his fluidity is a lot better than what I expected. I thought he was a stiff guy. That boy gets in and out of breaks, he’s very physical, very humble. Southern kid who isn’t really gonna say anything, but he’s gonna give ya hips a little bit and let you know, ‘I’m not no average rookie and you’re not gonna punk me.’ He has that dog in him. But the difference in his dog—he’ll bite you.”