Bucs Nation
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have sure been fighters this season, winning each of their first three games in a come-from-behind effort, but that streak fell against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 4.
Facing a 24-6 deficit, the Buccaneers tried to make an impressive comeback in the second half and fell short, being hurt by an early blocked punt, a poor third-down conversion rate, and multiple missed opportunities offensively.
While these comeback efforts have certainly led to thrilling games, they aren’t sustainable over the course of a 17-game season and head coach Todd Bowles knows that.
“The fight, we’re going to have that every week,” Bowles said, via team reporter Scott Smith. “But you can’t fight and get behind the eight-ball against good teams and expect to win. We’re always going to have fight. We just have to clean up mistakes now. It’s getting to that point where we have to cut them down.”
Quarterback Baker Mayfield has embraced the adversity factor with the come-from-behind wins, but knows the offense must start faster to be more consistent against the Seahawks.
“I think from an offensive perspective, not having a bunch of the guys the first few weeks, we were getting tested early,” Mayfield said, via Smith. “[We] handled it well when it comes to just finding ways to get wins. But yeah, like I said after the game, got to start faster, got to be the aggressor, not wait, whether it’s chippy or we get hit in the mouth once. We’ve got to come out swinging. So, that’s the thing that we’re looking to get fixed. But yeah, it’s going to be a good test on the road.”
Slow starts have been a concern for the Buccaneers this season. Last weekend, they fell behind 24-6 at halftime, which became too much of a deficit to overcome. Back in Week 1 against the Falcons, Tampa went three-and-out on back-to-back drives to open the game before firing back.
When the Buccaneers are facing adversity, they’ve thrived this season, as we’ve seen from the first three weeks. But when they have started hot and been ahead of the eight-ball, they’ve stuttered, as seen in the Houston and New York games, before firing back.
And, when they haven’t started hot, like in the Atlanta and Philadelphia games, they’ve needed the other factors to go well (defense and special teams).
Gaining more consistency and efficiency on offense could make this group one of the toughest to beat in the NFL this season. And they’ll get a good challenge to test that this weekend against a Mike Macdonald-led defense that always has something up its sleeve.
