Jalon Daniels may have thrown the interceptions, but offensive coordinator Zac Robinson called the plays that put the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ rookie quarterback in those spots during a 26-19 overtime loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Robinson deserves an equal share of the blame for how a 16-3 lead vanished at Raymond James Stadium.
Daniels’ line was rough. He went 22-of-43 for 164 yards with one touchdown pass, two interceptions, and five sacks. He entered Sunday with a 57.3 overall grade, 30th-of-36 eligible quarterbacks per PFF.
That grade rests on 71 dropbacks, a small sample, and Sunday did nothing to lift it. Calling his day a painful answer at quarterback tells only part of the story, though.
Where the second half fell apart
Tampa Bay opened the second half with a 17-play, 70-yard drive that took 9:02 off the clock, mixing Bucky Irving runs with short completions to Emeka Egbuka and Cade Otton. Even that series stalled at the Pittsburgh 13, where an Irving run lost 2 yards and two incompletions forced a 33-yard field goal.
Over the next four possessions, Robinson leaned on a predictable pattern. Three of them opened with an Irving run on first down, followed by pass calls on second and third down. Those four drives totaled 11 plays and 7 yards, and Daniels went 0-of-6 with both interceptions.
The first came on third-and-7 with the Bucs up 16-10. The second, with the score tied at 16, set up Chris Boswell’s go-ahead 20-yard field goal. Irving gained 4 yards on those three first-down carries, a week after Irving ran for 165 yards in Dallas.
Daniels didn’t see a different defense as the contest progressed. The execution just wasn’t there in the second half.
“I wouldn’t say [the Steelers’ defense] was doing anything different from the first half,” Daniels said after the overtime loss. “We connected on a lot of those same passes that we did not get a chance to connect on in the second half.”
Head coach Todd Bowles put it plainly: “You play that hard and you grab the lead, you’ve got to keep it.”
Bowles’ own seat is already a talking point, with smart money on the Buccaneers firing him before the bye.
Whether Baker Mayfield’s return comes in Carolina or later, the next checkpoint belongs to Robinson.
If he protects a lead with the same three-play script, the quarterback change won’t fix it.
