NFC Notes: Buccaneers, Falcons, Saints

Buccaneers

Tampa Bay QB Baker Mayfield was the successor for legendary QB Tom Brady after a great three-year run for the franchise. Mayfield compared their approaches to the game and talked about his duty to make the locker room fun every day. 

“The building was a little bit different with Tom in there. Obviously, playing-wise, Tom is different. He had everybody dialed in, high-strung environment, so I think everybody was pretty stressed out,” Mayfield said, via the Casa de Klub podcast. “They wanted me to come in, be myself, bring the joy back to football for guys who weren’t having as much fun.”

• Buccaneers DT William Gholston was fined $7,653 for Roughing the Passer (contact in the knee area or below).

Falcons

Falcons RB Bijan Robinson talked about his willingness to contribute in all phases of the game to contribute to winning.

“Just putting it on them from the beginning — running the ball, catching the ball out of the backfield, doing the dynamic stuff God blessed me to do to help this team win,” Robinson said, via Crissy Froyd of the Falcons Wire.

Atlanta OC Zac Robinson praised Robinson’s skillset and highlighted how well he’s done in pass protection.

“Bijan, I thought he saw the game really well. He was hitting everything that was there. I know he feels like he left a couple things on the table just in terms of attacking the third level of the defense, but those things will come with more reps. Just getting used to the game flow and how the speed of the game is.”

“I thought the blocking he did was incredible. Him being able to close the space on some of those linebackers and show what he can do in pass protection.”

• Falcons WR Drake London was fined $14,069 for Unsportsmanlike Conduct (violent gesture) and WR Ray-Ray McCloud $10,528 for Unnecessary Roughness (striking/kicking/kneeing).

• Carr commented on the team’s loss in Week 3: “It’s not going to be that easy all the time. For us, it’s a great opportunity. You get hit in the mouth, and with that said, I thought we responded to a tough, gritty game.” (Katherine Terrell)
• Carr said there’s no attitude of discouragement. “You’re pissed because you lost and you’re mad at that. You want to win all these games. At the end of the game we played a really good football team, and we knew what type of team they were.” (Terrell)