The Bucs walked out of a rainy Week 8 with a 16-0 win over Atlanta and, for the most part, they got exactly what they wanted. Tampa Bay leaned hard into the ground game, controlled the night, and kept the Falcons from ever finding a foothold.
But even in a shutout, a few things still stood out as letdowns.
The biggest one was the passing game, or really, the lack of one. Baker Mayfield finished with zero completions, which sounds almost absurd in 2026 and somehow still happened in a game Tampa Bay won comfortably.
The Bucs committed to the run in miserable weather and the plan worked beautifully, but the aerial side of the offense did nothing to quiet the concern around a unit that entered Week 8 ranked 32nd in passing. Mayfield has now thrown for just 64 yards over the past two games, and while the Bucs are convinced the passing attack will be there when needed, this wasn’t the night to prove it.
“Whenever we need it, we’ll have it,” Mayfield said after the game.
Ted Hurst III also had a chance to change the tone early. With Emeka Egbuka and Jalen McMillan out, Hurst has been looking for a bigger role, and Mayfield gave him a shot on a deep ball that was right in his hands.
He dropped it. In those conditions, it was still a catchable ball, and it would have been a major play if he’d finished it.
Instead, the third-round pick is still waiting for the kind of breakout moment that has kept slipping away.
Then there was Bucky Irving, who was easily Tampa Bay’s best offensive weapon and opened the game with a 24-yard run that got the crowd going. He was the spark all night and has been all season, but he also put the ball on the ground in the first quarter on a play that could have changed the feel of the game.
Mayfield escaped a collapsing pocket after a fumbled snap and flipped the ball backward to Irving, who looked set to turn it into a touchdown and a 10-0 lead. Instead, Jessie Bates III punched it loose near the goal line, and the ball rolled into the end zone for a touchback.
It was a huge play by Bates, and it left Tampa Bay with only a 3-0 lead at the time. Irving made up for plenty of it later, but that sequence still qualified as one of the night’s biggest disappointments.
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