Tampa’s Identity Is Right Back On Track
Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers entered Week 4 with a 2-1 record, but that doesn’t mean that all felt well with the team. After a convincing Week 1 victory against the Washington Commanders and coming out on top in a Week 2 slugfest against the Detroit Lions, getting routed 26-7 by a winless Denver Broncos team was enough to take the wind out of the injury-depleted team’s sails and send the fan base into a tailspin.
Why can’t they find Mike Evans?
How is this defense not sacking anyone?
The offensive line is broken.
Is the defense too injured to hold up?
Why did Baker Mayfield stop throwing deep?
When is Bucky Irving taking over as the lead back?
It took three hours on Sunday to shift the vibes completely back into Tampa’s favor. It starts with Mayfield coming back from an awful Week 3 performance to look like a top quarterback in the league again. Suddenly, Mayfield’s eight passing touchdowns (10 total) are second among quarterbacks and his 984 passing yards are fourth in the NFL, as is his 106.9 passer rating. Is it good for your quarterback to have better numbers than Joe Burrow? The answer is: Yes, and it feels a lot better when it’s not coming off a 26-7 loss.
It also feels better when Mayfield is throwing deeper than he did last week. Despite cutting around three-fourths of a second off his average time to throw in Week 4, Mayfield’s average depth of target was 7.1, up from his season average of 5.4.
The Evans problem got temporarily solved as well. While Evans fell six yards short of his first (regular season) 100-yard game since Week 13 of last year — a nine-game drought — he found the end zone for the first time since Week 1. Mayfield also looked for him 14 times, which almost matches the 15 he had through the first three games. Evans is back in business.
So is Rachaad White, at least for one week. After catching criticism for taking more snaps than Irving, White justified his role on the team in Week 4. White took more snaps (45) than his rookie counterpart (33) and got one more touch. Far from his 2.1 average in the first three weeks of the season, White matched Irving’s 10 carries for 49 yards, adding another two catches for 35 yards. The backfield tandem worked to perfection on Sunday.
As for Todd Bowles’ chosen side of the field, the defense put up a masterful performance that dispelled most of their criticisms. Despite having a PFF pass-rush grade in the top half of the league, the Bucs had just two sacks to show for it through three weeks. It’s not often that a team quadruples their sack total this late into the season, but here we are.
The Eagles did a fairly good job keeping Jalen Hurts upright during the first three weeks, with seven sacks coming into this week. He almost matched that total in a nightmarish game, as he got sacked six times, losing more than seven yards per sack. All five Bucs who registered sacks on Sunday (Lavonte David’s with two, one each for Yaya Diaby, Logan Hall, Anthony Nelson, and Vita Vea) got their first of the year, getting that weight off their backs.
Then a defense that spent the season doing bend-but-don’t-break-type stuff suddenly stopped bending. The Eagles were held to just 227 yards after pouring 460 yards on the New Orleans Saints the week prior. Jalen Hurts had a combined 178 total yards (158 passing, 20 rushing), his lowest total in a full game since Week 8 of the 2021 season. And that’s not even counting the 44 yards he lost taking sacks. And this happened with Winfield and others still out injured.
As we learned on Sunday, and also, Week 3, the vibes can shift the other way in a hurry. But at least for one week, the Buccaneers put all their major criticisms to bed as they seized sole control of the NFC South. The only question is whether their loss to the (now 2-2, by the way) Broncos was a real red flag, or a fluke that will be forgotten as the Bucs continue to gain momentum.
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