The Tampa Bay Bucs paid the price for playing with a hangover against the Denver Broncos last Sunday, following a scorching start that included an offensive explosion in Week 1 and a dramatic victory in Detroit.
It was a 26-7 bulldozing that Sean Payton planned and a Broncos squad that was entirely different from what it had played the previous two weeks carried out. After leading the league’s worst redzone offence to two early touchdown drives to open the game, Bo Nix kept the Bucs on the defensive for the remainder of the afternoon.
The Bucs appeared to have a chance to start anything at every point, but they were unsuccessful. A punt to begin the second half followed a furious scoring drive just before halftime. On the team’s second offensive drive of the game, Baker Mayfield threw an interception, and Cade Otton fumbled the team’s final opportunity to stage a comeback.
It was an intense afternoon that the Bucs must find a way to grow from and not simply brush under the rug.
Todd Bowles said as much after the game, but it was an overall team loss on Sunday afternoon. Nothing went right, from bad special teams to poor offensive game planning to brutal defensive play. Everyone deserves blame for what happened, but a few stick out more than others when looking back on how things went.
Baker Mayfield
Fair is fair, and when Baker Mayfield plays like crap he needs to be called on it as much as he’s praised when things go well. Sunday was a case of the former, as Baker played one of his worst games since signing with the Bucs in just about every way imaginable.
He finished the game with just 163 yards, an interception, and a lone touchdown pass to Chris Godwin. That score came just before halftime and looked like it could have been a spicy turning point in the game for the Bucs. Instead, it was merely a flash in the pan as the offense failed to get anything going and Baker couldn’t muster up any magic.
Even his runs were a bummer. A week after he cooked the Lions on back-to-back Angry Runs that led to a score, Baker tried the same thing but cut the wrong way and ended up getting tackled well short of a first down.
That was the kind of afternoon it was for Baker and the Bucs. To his credit, Mayfield owned the loss afterward and sent a pitch perfect message to the team about what should happen next. Rather than panic, Mayfield both shared blame for the loss and suggested it’s the kind of humbling the team can learn from.
While the Bucs might have lost on the field, it’s hard to be upset with Baker for how he handled things after.
In his post-game remarks, Baker accepted some of the blame for the pressure the Broncos defensive line put on him. His actions are commendable as a leader of the locker room, and he is not incorrect, but the Bucs offensive line failed to support their quarterback during Sunday’s game.
Denver’s pass rush put Mayfield under constant pressure, which affected his throws all day. The fact that Tampa Bay’s receivers were so well-defended contributed to the issue by making Baker need additional time to complete throws. Given how terrible the queue was, it was a recipe for catastrophe. Not having Luke Goedeke made things more difficult because Justin Skule had to take over for him and was once more devoured alive while attempting to protect Baker.
This wouldn’t be as troubling, given the lack of a key piece like Goedeke, if it weren’t such a habitual problem for the Bucs. We’re going on the third straight year of offensive line issues plaguing production, and while it wasn’t the sole reason Tampa Bay lost on Sunday it’s a big enough reason to be worried.
Godeke might have been out, but Tristan Wirfs, Graham Braton, and Cody Mauch were all healthy and the line still struggled. It’s a major issue that needs to improve sooner rather than later, as the Bucs can’t afford to keep having games like they did on Sunday.
K.J. Britt and Anthony Nelson
On the Broncos’ third offensive drive of the game, Jaleel McLaughlin scrambled to his right on a 4th-and-goal when Anthony Nelson had him dead to rights. McLaughlin was five yards away from the goal line and looked to be done, but he juked Nelson into another dimension to get around him.
After that, K.J. Britt was the only player who had a chance to get to McLaughlin, but he was too slow to catch the Broncos running back before he could dance into the endzone.
It was possibly Tampa Bay’s worst play of the game because it not only let Denver take a 14-0 lead but also established the course of events that would follow. Considering how poor Denver had been through the first two games of the season, it is especially disappointing that the Bucs defence was never able to fully keep up with the Broncos’ offence.
Britt and Nelson weren’t the only players who failed the Bucs on Sunday, but that play serves as a representation of what brutal the day was for Tampa Bay. The entire defense was abysmal, and the way that Denver touchdown developed — from the Bucs having him stopped to him somehow scoring — is a vibe that infected almost everything the defense touched.
Buccaneers Pass Rush
While the Broncos were able to generate pressure on Baker Mayfield all afternoon, the same can’t be said for Tampa Bay. Part of the reason Bo Nix had a career game — as small as that sample size is — was due to how much time he had in the pocket to make throws.
That’s entirely on the Bucs lack of pass rush, as nobody was able to get home and force a rookie quarterback to make mistakes. Just like with the poor offensive line play, injuries played a major role in creating this nightmare scenario where Nix looks like Patrick Mahomes for most of the afternoon.
Calijah Kancey missed his third straight game with a calf injury, while Vita Vea was ruled out over the weekend with an MCL sprain. Losing those guys put an obvious strain on the defensive line that it wasn’t able to make up for against the Broncos.
It’s something worth keeping an eye on as the Bucs enter a brutal stretch of games starting next Sunday. Tampa Bay has upcoming games against the Eagles, Falcons, Saints, and Ravens; if not having Kancey or Vea against the Broncos resulted in a blowout loss, it’s pretty gnarly to think about what might happen against even better teams.
Following the siren call of praise for a week, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers found themselves in a trap game, despite the fact that national critics who had done the opposite this offseason had shown them respect.
On Sunday, Sean Payton and the Denver Broncos dominated the Buccaneers, putting Todd Bowles’ defence to the test and limiting one of the league’s top offences to only one touchdown. From Anthony Nelson and K.J. Britt getting roasted by Bo Nix and Jaleel McLaughlin to Cade Otton botching the Bucs’ final opportunity to try to tie the game, nothing seemed to go right.
What didn’t happen, though, was the blame game getting played after the final whistle.
It’s a small victory in an otherwise atrocious loss, but the Bucs wore what happened on Sunday rather than try to pretend like it was anything other than an embarrassment.
Baker Mayfield sent the exact right message after Buccaneers humbling loss to Broncos
Leading the charge in setting the tone after the loss was Baker Mayfield, which is hardly surprising.
After the loss, Mayfield spoke with the media but didn’t once try to hide from what had happened. Instead, he wore the loss and used it as a chance to let everyone know that this team isn’t going to fall into the same trap twice.
“This is a good lesson for our team overall: you have to prepare like you’re playing in a playoff game every week, or else this can happen. We got our asses kicked physicallity-wise, execution-wise, all over the board for us. It’s a good lesson for … the young guys who haven’t seen it before,” Baker said. “For it to happen this early on, I’m going to take the positives from it and take this one on the chin. There’s nothing else to do besides that, and go from there.
What he does on the field is one thing, but this is another reason the Bucs paid Baker $100 million to come back this offseason. The maturity and leadership he’s shown has been one of the most valuable things he’s brought to Tampa Bay, and it’s one of the reasons fans shouldn’t be too nervous after such an abysmal loss.
Although Tampa Bay has already fallen into similar traps, escaping them is a difficult task. We seen that last year for the first time in a long time, and Baker played a major role in it. Unlike the squad from last season, most previous Bucs teams don’t come back from a 1-6 slump, but none of those teams featured Baker Mayfield at the centre of their success.
When things are going well, it’s simple to get carried away, but Baker’s composure in the wake of this kind of setback should be much appreciated. The Bucs should approach this setback with the mindset that it is a humbling experience, and that’s why everyone should assurance that solutions will be found more quickly than in the past.
