There was a unique overlap in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers–Atlanta Falcons game this Sunday. Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield was facing off against his former Cleveland Browns head coach, Kevin Stefanski, who now leads the Falcons. And since the QB was sent off to the Carolina Panthers by the coach, the two seem to have beef brewing between them.

When asked if he had the chance to talk to Stefanski before or after the Bucs’ statement 16-0 victory over the Falcons, Mayfield said, “Nope.”

It was a similar response that Mayfield gave earlier in the week. During a conversation with the media, a reporter asked the quarterback if he had talked to Stefanski since their time together in Cleveland. The reporter received a stern reply.

“No, I haven’t spoken to him since 2021,” Mayfield stated.

Their apparent rift goes back to 2022, when the QB was traded to the Carolina Panthers, and Cleveland got Deshaun Watson to replace him. Mayfield, even with his flaws, was perhaps the last good quarterback Cleveland had in recent years. Despite throwing for 14,125 yards and 92 touchdowns, Kevin Stefanski and Co. seemed to lose hope in Mayfield.

However, he said he was “doing alright” when the reporter asked whether the rift with Stefanski bothered him. But the Bucs quarterback hasn’t exactly been quiet either.

“Failed is quite the reach, pal,” Mayfield wrote in a reply to an X post back in January 2026 that addressed Stefanski’s “dumpster fire” with Cleveland quarterbacks, and deemed that Mayfield was among those who failed. “Still waiting on a text/call from him after I got shipped off like a piece of garbage. Can’t wait to see you twice a year, Coach.”

Stefanski was eventually fired by the Browns after the 2025 season and was hired by the Falcons.

Baker Mayfield seemed to have the last laugh against his former head coach. He also did it with zero passing yards against the Falcons.

Mayfield went 0-for-3 on passes for zero yards. He let the run game do the talking, as the QB, Bucky Irving and Kenny Gainwell ran to set a franchise record of 324 rushing yards in a single game.

Even though Stefanski didn’t have anything to say to Mayfield, he was pretty disappointed with the 16-0 defeat.

“Obviously, you gotta play the game that’s in front of you,” said Stefanski. “The conditions were what they were for both teams. We didn’t do a good job as a team. So, that’s a credit to them, a credit to their players, a credit to their coaches. They did a better job than we did. Disappointed in that result, but we’ll own it, and we’ll move on.”

Of course, Mayfield isn’t the only quarterback who won a game without gaining a single passing yard. The Pittsburgh Steelers were the first franchise to pull off such a feat, when they beat the Brooklyn Dodgers by 14-7 in 1941. The Steelers did it again, defeating the Chicago Cardinals 23–0 in 1945 without completing a single pass. Quarterback Bill Dudley had zero passes in this game.

Perhaps it was best the Bucs did not try to attack through the air. Atlanta Falcons QB could only complete eight of 24 passes, threw for 125 yards, and was intercepted four times.

There is a certain poetic irony in a franchise quarterback getting sweet revenge against his former head coach without recording a single passing yard. Yet, Baker Mayfield decided to walk off the field without talking to his former coach. The win did enough talking for him.

The post Baker Mayfield Issues 1-Word Response to Seeing Kevin Stefanski After Bucs’ Win With Zero Passing Yards Against Falcons appeared first on EssentiallySports. Add EssentiallySports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.