It’s hard to believe that halfway through the 2025 season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were sitting at 6-2 with an inside track to the No. 1 seed of the NFC playoff bracket, riding MVP-level play from quarterback Baker Mayfield, with a road win over the eventual Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks under their belt.
But instead of storming into the postseason, last year’s Bucs lost seven of their last nine games, ending their streak of five straight playoff appearances and four straight NFC South titles with a long string of frustrating losses plagued by injuries and inconsistency.
Despite the epic collapse, the Bucs opted for half measures in the offseason, retaining head coach Todd Bowles while changing up their offensive staff. Zac Robinson was hired to take over the offense, and the team was hoping a few tweaks and better injury luck would allow them to be the team we saw to start last season for an entire 17-game slate in 2026.
A month into the regular season, that approach has been a colossal failure, as the Bucs currently sit at 0-4 as one of five teams across the entire league still looking for their first victory of the year.
The latest chapter in their dismal start to the 2026 campaign was a 17-14 home loss to the Green Bay Packers, a team that got destroyed at home 35-14 by the Atlanta Falcons the week prior. That same Falcons team lost 34-3 to the Carolina Panthers in Week 2.
Tampa Bay had plenty of chances to pull out the win Sunday, thanks to some clutch takeaways from their defense in critical moments, and some flashes of potential from Jalon Daniels, their undrafted free agent rookie quarterback who made his first career start in place of an injured Baker Mayfield. But despite another close game against a beatable opponent that gave them more than a few openings to steal the victory, the Bucs simply couldn’t rise to the occasion and brought too little, too late.
Sunday’s loss was particularly painful considering the Bucs made the Packers look capable in areas where they’ve struggled all year long:
The glass-half-full Bucs fans are likely to point out that all four of their team’s losses have been one-score affairs, indicating they’re not that far away from getting back to their winning ways from the first half of last season. But Sunday’s loss marked the 10th straight one-score result for Tampa Bay, and they’ve won only two of those games, making it clear that this is a team that has forgotten how to come through in close games and get on the right side of the scoreboard.
And if the start hasn’t been ugly enough, consider the fact that three of those four losses have been at home, and the schedule won’t get any easier from here. The Bucs have yet to play a division game to this point, and the rest of the NFC South has looked considerably better through the first four weeks of the season. Playing in a weak division has been a clear advantage for the Bucs in recent years, but right now, they look like the worst club in the group instead of the team that should be expected to beat up on the rest.
Tampa Bay now faces a short week before a Thursday night road matchup against the Dallas Cowboys, and outside of their division matchups, tough opponents like the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Los Angeles Rams and Baltimore Ravens still await them down the road.
Speaking of Mayfield’s injury, the Bucs’ newly paid (again) starting quarterback is expected to miss at least two more weeks after suffering a dislocated thumb on his throwing hand at the end of their Week 3 loss to the Minnesota Vikings. Daniels performed admirably in his stead Sunday, but it’s hard to imagine the offense being better with an undrafted free agent rookie at the helm instead of the guy Tampa Bay just handed $165 million more over the next few seasons.
What likely awaits at the end of this season is a house-cleaning of the entire coaching staff, something that should’ve happened after last year’s unimaginable finish. There’s still more than enough talent on this roster to be competitive in the NFC South and be a problem in the postseason, but it’s not being maximized on either side of the ball.
That should be a silver lining for Bucs fans, along with the possibility of a top-five pick in the 2027 NFL Draft, a class that should feature plenty of blue-chip prospects who could make an immediate impact in Tampa Bay next season (Ohio State wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, Notre Dame cornerback Leonard Moore, Texas edge rusher Colin Simmons).
But in the meantime, with an 0-4 start in the rearview mirror and a foreseeable future without their starting quarterback, it looks like it’s gonna be a long year for the Pewter Pirates and their steadfast supporters, as they look forward to an offseason of big changes that will be long overdue.
