The Cincinnati Bengals opened the season by leaning on the part of their team they spent all offseason rebuilding, and it paid off in a 33-27 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday at Paycor Stadium.
Three first-half takeaways turned the game early. The Buccaneers kept handing Cincinnati extra possessions, and the Bengals turned each one into touchdowns.
The first came on a strip-sack of Baker Mayfield, with linebacker Demetrius Knight Jr. scooping it up and taking it 27 yards for a score. By halftime, Cincinnati was sitting on a 24-10 lead.
Tampa Bay made things interesting after the break. Rookie linebacker Josiah Trotter picked off Joe Burrow and returned it 38 yards for a touchdown in the third quarter to cut the margin to 27-20.
Then, in the fourth, Boye Mafe got to Mayfield for a sack-fumble that stalled another Buccaneers push. Mayfield answered with a late touchdown drive to make it 33-27 with 3:19 left, but Burrow and the Bengals’ offense ran out the clock from there.
What stood out most was how many of Cincinnati’s offseason bets showed up in impact moments. Mafe, who was paid $20 million per year, had the fourth-quarter sack-fumble and also recovered a fumble in the first half.
Safety Bryan Cook, at $13 million per year, forced a first-half fumble. Jonathan Allen, on a two-year deal worth $25 million, got a sack on third-and-long that forced a field goal.
Dexter Lawrence, acquired in a trade, didn’t fill up the stat sheet, but he consistently pushed the pocket and helped force Mayfield into a scramble that ended in a first-half fumble in the end zone while drawing double teams all afternoon.
The draft class and the younger players mattered too. Cashius Howell, Cincinnati’s second-round pick, drew a holding call that set Tampa Bay back early. And the Bengals trusted second-year linebackers Knight Jr. and Barrett Carter, with Carter involved in the sack sequence when Myles Murphy forced a fumble and Knight recovered it for a defensive touchdown that set the tone.
The front kept coming after that. With the Bengals playing from ahead, the pressure on Mayfield never really let up, exactly the kind of wave effect Duke Tobin had been chasing by pouring resources into the unit. The final sack-fumble from Mafe was the latest example of that vision showing up in real time.
Tampa Bay still managed 27 points, which would be enough to win plenty of games, but the turnovers were too much to survive. Mayfield lost four fumbles overall, three of them his own, the most ever in a game in his nine-year career. For the Buccaneers, it was a rough opener for a quarterback who had just signed a record-setting contract last week.
Trotter was one of the bright spots for Tampa Bay, even in defeat. In his NFL debut, he finished with nine tackles, a sack and the pick-six, becoming the first player in franchise history to do that.
On the other side, Cincinnati’s offense showed the under-center look it had spent the offseason talking about. The Bengals, who returned all 11 starters from 2025, used that formation 17 times for 78 rushing yards and leaned on it most in the fourth quarter while protecting the lead. Burrow wasn’t perfect - he missed Tee Higgins on a play-action deep shot from under center in the first half - and he also threw the pick-6 to Trotter, but the new approach still helped Cincinnati finish the game.
That closing drive mattered, too. After Mayfield’s touchdown scramble cut the lead to six, Burrow responded with help from Dohnte Meyers and Samaje Perine before Higgins delivered the kind of play that sealed it, twisting into the air to catch an 18-yard pass that put the win on ice.
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