On Monday, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers confirmed what football fans expected: Baker Mayfield will miss the team’s Week 4 matchup with the Green Bay Packers due to a dislocated thumb. Bucs head coach Todd Bowles confirmed the injury to the media in his Monday press conference, and said that they expect Mayfield to be out “a minimum of three weeks.”
Tampa Bay had just two quarterbacks on their 53-man roster, along with one on the practice squad. Jalon Daniels, an undrafted rookie out of Kansas, had backed
up Mayfield through the first three games and is expected to start in Sunday’s game against Green Bay, while Easton Stick, a veteran journeyman, is likely to get called up from the practice squad as Daniels’ backup.
So what exactly is Daniels? For those who did not follow the Jayhawks the last few years and did not take a deep dive into the depths of this year’s draftable quarterbacks, here’s a quick primer.
Daniels is a short, mobile quarterback, who made his name for the Jayhawks as a dual threat. At the 2026 NFL Combine, Daniels measured in at just under 6-foot-1 and 219 pounds, and he ran a 4.65-second 40-yard dash, which illustrates his scrambling ability.
Daniels enrolled at Kansas for the 2020 season and he started six of their nine games as a true freshman in the COVID-shortened campaign. He only managed 718 passing yards, then split the starting job as a sophomore in 2021. He eventually took over the starting job in 2022 and despite dealing with some injuries then on (particularly in 2023, when he only played in three games), the job was his when healthy and he stayed in Lawrence for all six of his college seasons.
In the 2022, 2024, and 2025 seasons, Daniels started 9, 12, and 12 games and passed for at least 2,000 yards and ran for 400-plus each year, demonstrating his mobility. Interestingly, however, the Jayhawks’ best season in that span came in 2023, the year when he was injured for much of the season, when they finished 9-4 and ranked 23rd in the final AP poll of the season. That Jayhawks team ran the offense through running back Devin Neal, while senior Jason Bean stepped in for the injured Daniels to lead the team to a win over UNLV in the Guaranteed Rate Bowl.
NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein’s prospect notes indicate Daniels has “enough arm talent” to make some deep throws and highlights his athleticism and mobility as strengths. However, accuracy and reading coverages appear to be issues, and Zierlein notes that Daniels’ footwork “unravels on occasion, even without heavy pressure.”
With a player like this under center for the opposition, expect Packers defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon to get creative with his pressure schemes. Mayfield took a whopping 13 sacks over the first three games of the season, and although he tends to have a moderately high sack rate for his career, a 12% rate is absurd and indicative of a line that is allowing significant pressure. Meanwhile, Daniels entered Sunday’s game against Minnesota late, going 0-for-3 passing with an interception.
A quarterback matchup like this could be just what the doctor ordered for the Packers’ defense to bounce back after an abysmal showing last Thursday night against the Atlanta Falcons.
