Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 9
Yeah, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers need to panic. This is horrendous. The Bucs lost a close Week 1 game to the Cincinnati Bengals, which was fine - I don't think losing to a good team in their house is a bad loss by any means.
Baker Mayfield didn't play well, but you can't wn every game. However, Week 2 was an entirely different story, as the Bucs dropped their home opener to Cleveland, which feels like a rather inexcusable loss.
In the coming weeks, the Buccaneers face Minnesota, Green Bay, Dallas, Pittsburgh, Carolina, Atlanta, and Chicago. There are some winnable games here, but this team has been regressing for more than a season now. Dating back to the 2025 regular season, Tampa Bay has gone 2-9 over their last 11 regular season games, which came after a strong 6-2 start last year.
The Todd Bowles era may honestly be coming to an end, as he's a low-ceiling head coach and just doesn't have much going right with his team. He's never really been a great head coach and is more someone who can at least keep the ship from sinking.
With that said, the ship has begun to sink in Tampa. Unless there is some sort of major, identity-finding turnaround in the coming weeks, the Bucs are going to miss the playoffs for a second season in a row in the weak NFC South.
What might even be worse is that the team re-upped Mayfield on a big-time contract extension before the season, and he's not held up that end thus far. There isn't much for the Buccaneers to point to that has gone right since about midway through the 2025 regular season.
It might simply be time for some changes, and it's certainly time to panic as well.
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