The Buccaneers’ defense may have taken its lumps late in the 2025 regular season, but through the first stretch of 2026, it’s been the unit carrying this team. Todd Bowles’ group has kept Tampa Bay in games while the offense has been the side holding things back, including in losses to the Cincinnati Bengals, Cleveland Browns, and Green Bay Packers that the Buccaneers should have won.
That changed on Thursday Night Football, when the offense finally closed the deal in a 24-16 win over the Dallas Cowboys. Bucky Irving did the heavy lifting on the ground, piling up 165 rushing yards, and the Bucs got the kind of result they had been missing. But even with the attention on Irving, Jalon Daniels, and wide receiver Tez Johnson, the defense was again the sharper story.
Tampa Bay bottled up Dallas for most of the night. Outside of George Pickens, the Cowboys never found much rhythm, and Dak Prescott looked far more ordinary than expected in his own stadium. Against one of the NFL’s most dangerous offenses, the Buccaneers’ defense did the job.
Two rookies, in particular, were everywhere. Josiah Trotter and Keionte Scott are looking more and more like foundational pieces for Bowles’ defense, and both continued their strong starts against Dallas. Rueben Bain Jr. still has plenty of time to make his own mark as the first-round pick, but Trotter and Scott are already showing why Tampa Bay hit on these selections.
Trotter turned in another productive outing as the new quarterback of the defense and Lavonte David’s heir, finishing with seven tackles and a tackle for loss. Scott matched that production from the secondary, even though he’s a defensive back, and his role showed exactly why the Buccaneers value his versatility. He was flying around as a hybrid defender who can line up just about anywhere, and he also came up with a couple of strong red-zone coverage plays, staying tight to his man and making the right reads in man or zone.
Through five weeks, both rookies have been impossible to miss. Trotter leads the team with 40 tackles, has the only defensive touchdown on the roster with a pick six, and has added three tackles for loss. Scott has 24 tackles, all but one of them solo, along with two passes defended.
For Tampa Bay, the message is getting louder by the week: the future of this defense is already here.
In Other News...
Bucs Face A Chase McLaughlin Decision Fans Can Already Debate
PewterReportTV has added a fresh wrinkle to the offseason conversation with a new video series, Bucs Cap Convo, and the latest episode zeroes in on one of the more interesting roster questions sitting in front of Tampa Bay. With salary cap expert Josh Queipo breaking down the numbers on the channels YouTube page, the focus turns to Chase McLaughlin and what his place on the team means as general manager Jason Licht and assistant general manager Mike Greenberg continue sorting through cap priorities.
It is not the flashiest issue on the board, but it is the kind of decision that can matter when a team is trying to keep its operation steady year after year. McLaughlins value is now part of the broader conversation around how Tampa Bay allocates money, and this episode gives fans a closer look at the thinking behind that process while leaving plenty of room for debate about where the kicking situation is headed next. [Read more 🡒]
Buccaneers Have A Real Emeka Egbuka Problem After This Start
Emeka Egbuka arrived in Tampa Bay with the kind of early-career momentum that usually buys a receiver some room to work through a rough patch. Instead, the first five weeks of his second NFL season have put a spotlight on how sharply his production has fallen from the standard he set as a rookie, and it has left him looking like the least efficient pass catcher on a Buccaneers offense that has needed more dependable answers from him.
There have still been a few encouraging snaps and plays along the way, but the broader picture is hard to miss when compared with what he did a year ago. Egbuka has not matched the same burst, the same impact on chunk gains, or the same consistency that made him such a promising piece of Tampa Bays receiver group, and until that changes, his role in the offense will keep drawing attention for all the wrong reasons. [Read more 🡒]
Bucs Win Helped Expose A Bigger Cowboys Problem Under Jerry Jones
The Cowboys loss to the Buccaneers only sharpened the scrutiny around Jerry Jones and the way Dallas is built. Fox Sports analyst Colin Cowherd used the defeat as a springboard to revisit a familiar criticism of Jones, arguing that the owner has not put enough emphasis on his coaching staff even as he has poured money into other parts of the franchise. The result, Cowherd suggested, is a team that can look well-resourced on paper but still lacks the kind of sideline structure that tends to hold up when the season gets messy.
For Tampa Bay, the win was another sign that the Bucs can expose problems in a high-profile opponent, but the larger fallout landed in Dallas. Jones made clear he was disappointed with the defense after the game, and the conversation around the Cowboys quickly shifted from one bad afternoon to the deeper issue of whether the franchises power structure keeps it from getting the most out of its talent. Cowherds point was less about one loss than about a pattern, and after the Buccaneers left with the win, that pattern looked harder for Jones to ignore. [Read more 🡒]