TAMPA, Fla. — The cat is out of the bag.
Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles confirmed after Wednesday's training camp that quarterback Baker Mayfield will start the team's first preseason game on Friday, Aug. 11 against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Bowles also said fellow competitor Kyle Trask will start Tampa Bay's second preseason game against the New York Jets on Saturday, Aug. 19.
"[Mayfield] will start this week and Kyle will start next week and we'll kind of go from there," he said.
The Tampa Bay head coach said he and his coaching staff are not really looking too much into who gets to start first. Instead, Bowles just wants to give the opportunity to both quarterbacks of starting a preseason game before a final decision is made.
"We're just going and we'll switch them out. It just happened to be that turn," he said.
Bowles did not say if Trask will play later in Friday's game, and the same goes for Mayfield in next week's game.
Trask has been competing with Mayfield for the quarterback position since the latter was signed in back in March on a one-year contract worth up to $8.5 million.
Mayfield, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, started his career with the Cleveland Browns before landing with the Carolina Panthers and Los Angeles Rams in 2022.
The team is expected to decide its next starting quarterback after the conclusion of the first two preseason games.
10 Tampa Bay's Claire Farrow contributed to this report.