The Buccaneers are 0-2, and that alone tells the story better than any slogan about depth, talent or potential.
Tampa Bay entered the season with big expectations, a rebuilt defense and a roster the club clearly believed in enough to commit $156 million in guaranteed money to Baker Mayfield and Vita Vea in recent weeks. Two games in, though, the Bucs look like a team tripping over its own shoelaces. The latest bruise was a 23-19 loss to the Browns, a game that left too many questions and not enough answers.
Left tackle Tristan Wirfs didn’t sugarcoat it.
“It’s frustrating. I don’t know what’s going on, or what it means,” said left tackle Tristan Wirfs.
“Obviously we’re shooting ourselves in the foot with penalties. Everyone knows that.
But where’s it coming from? It’s annoying.
It pisses everybody off. I would have never thought we could go 0-2.
Somehow, we’ve got to dig ourselves out.”
That frustration makes sense, but the penalties are only part of the mess. Graham Barton’s holding call on second down from the Cleveland 13 with 45 seconds left helped sink the final drive, yet Tampa Bay had already put itself in a bad spot.
The Bucs let Deshaun Watson engineer scoring drives on three of Cleveland’s four second-half possessions, and a two-score lead disappeared in the process. On the other side, the Browns defense held Mayfield to 5.4 yards per pass attempt after Jacksonville’s Trevor Lawrence had averaged 10.7 per attempt against them a week earlier.
The details get uglier the more you look. Why were the Bucs sending five receivers out on second down from the 13?
Why did six other Tampa Bay receivers draw more targets than Chris Godwin? Why does an offense that talked so confidently about what it could become look so out of rhythm now?
Mayfield put it plainly.
“It’s shooting ourselves in the foot, not making the plays when we need them,” Mayfield said. “These are fixable things but that also makes it more frustrating. Just get it corrected.”
That’s the maddening part of an 0-2 start: the flaws stop hiding. What looked like a strong roster in August now looks like a team that keeps finding new ways to sabotage itself.
And history isn’t especially kind here, either. Over the last decade, 84 teams have started 0-2, and about 14% of them reached the playoffs.
Tampa Bay is staring at Minnesota, Green Bay and Dallas over the next 18 days, which makes the hole feel even deeper. This is not where the Bucs expected to be after talking all offseason like a division title was there for the taking. The confidence was real, the talk was loud, and the results have been brutal.
Wirfs said the answer starts with the players looking inward.
“I hate saying we have to look in the mirror, but that’s what we’ve got to do,” Wirfs said.
Bowles sounded just as direct about the urgency.
“We’ve dealt with adversity before. This is an adverse situation again,” Bowles said. “(It’s) the first time at the beginning of the season, but we’re 0-2 right now and we have to pull ourselves up by our boots and we’ve got to win.”
The concern now is what comes next if the losses keep stacking up. Empty seats.
A frustrated Mayfield. Young players losing confidence.
And eventually, a noisy conversation about Bowles’ future.
For now, the record is simple: the Bucs are winless, and the damage already feels bigger than two weeks should allow.
In Other News...
Todd Bowles Pressure Is Rising As Bucs Eye Possible Replacements
The Buccaneers uneven season has put Todd Bowles back in the familiar spot of having his job questioned, and in a league where patience is often tied to results, that kind of chatter tends to grow louder as the losses pile up. Tampa Bay has been good enough in recent years to expect more than a drift toward mediocrity, so it is no surprise that discussion around the head coachs future has started to follow every disappointing stretch.
If the organization decides a change is needed after the season, the search would not be short on names. Among the candidates being floated are offensive coordinators Grant Udinski, Nate Scheelhaase and Declan Doyle, along with defensive coordinator Brian Flores, a group that reflects both the leagues appetite for fresh offensive minds and the appeal of a proven defensive voice. For now, the Buccaneers are still in the middle of their season, but the pressure around Bowles is no longer something that can be ignored. [Read more 🡒]
Buccaneers Draw A Much Tougher Vikings QB Test Than Expected
The Buccaneers were preparing for one kind of challenge this week, but the Vikings have a different quarterback plan in place. Minnesota head coach Kevin OConnell confirmed that Kyler Murray has cleared concussion protocol and will start against Tampa Bay in Week 3, with Carson Wentz still available as the backup. For a Tampa Bay defense already trying to get ready for a road test, the change means the scouting report gets a little more complicated.
Minnesota enters the matchup favored, and Murrays presence adds a layer of urgency to a game that already carried weight in the early part of the schedule. The bigger question now is what comes after Sunday, because it is still unclear whether Murray will hold onto the starting job beyond Week 3. For the Buccaneers, though, the immediate concern is simpler: they have to deal with a quarterback who changes the way Minnesota can attack. [Read more 🡒]
Buccaneers Already Have One Big Problem Fans Cant Ignore
The Buccaneers left Cleveland with more than just a 23-19 loss in Week 2. At 0-2, Tampa Bay is already staring at the kind of early-season hole that can make every problem feel bigger, and this one brought a few of them into focus at once. Baker Mayfield and Alex Anzalone had rough outings, while Bucky Irving and Chase McLaughlin were among the few players who managed to stand out on a disappointing afternoon.
What really jumps out, though, is how familiar some of the trouble looked. The offensive line had issues, the red zone offense never found a rhythm, and those are the kinds of problems that can flatten a team even when the defense gives it a chance to hang around. For the Buccaneers, the concern is no longer just about one bad result. It is about whether the issues that showed up in Week 2 are already becoming a pattern. [Read more 🡒]