Bucs are young, talented and precocious. They're also far from perfect For two weeks, they were the rambunctious kids on the playground. Running, hollering, leaping and laughing. Maybe they weren't the best behaved, and maybe they didn't have the answer to every question. But, by gosh, when the final whistle blew, the youngsters from Tampa Bay were standing shoulder to shoulder with the NFL's best. They looked like your favourite memories, and they played like the future was theirs. Until Sunday. Until their big-boy pants fell down around their ankles. This wasn't your run-of-the-mill 26-7 loss to the Broncos on Sunday. This was a beatdown, a wake-up call, an embarrassment. Four minutes into the game, the Bucs were losing 7-0 and it never got any better. The defense couldn't touch rookie quarterback Bo Nix, and the offense couldn't protect Baker Mayfield. They lost a fumble, they threw an interception, they committed back-to-back offsides penalties. Even if you took injuries into account and graded this on a curve, the Bucs failed miserably. "There (are) a lot of things to be disappointed about," said Todd Bowles. "I mean, we can coach it better, we can play it better. We didn't move the ball on offense, we didn't stop them on defense well enough, and we didn't do anything special on special teams to make a difference. So it's a complete team collapse. A complete team loss." And now the flaws of the first two weeks are suddenly more noticeable. The illusion of a bend-but-don't-break defense was obliterated. They've now been outrushed in three consecutive games, and opposing quarterbacks have a streak of nearly 100 passes without a sack. They've given up 815 yards in total offense the past two weeks, while gaining only 439. If this wasn't a wakeup call against a team that came in with an 0-2 record, then somebody isn't paying attention. "It's always going to be a slap in the face. Losing at home, especially, that's going to suck," Tristan Wirfs said. "But, on to next week. It's a long season, we've got a lot of football ahead of us and I'm really excited for it." What hurts is that the Bucs outperformed expectations the week before against Detroit. Even if the final numbers were incompatible with the scoreboard, they went on the road and won a game against a team that is considered one of the elite in the NFL. And seven days later they wasted the good vibes and their unexpected place in the standings by losing at home when they were 6 ½-point favourites. "This is something we've got to fix within," said Lavonte David. "Everything at the end of the day, man, is all internal. It's all about us and we've got to find a way to fix it." To be fair, there are extenuating circumstances. The Bucs were without interior defensive linemen Vita Vea and Calijah Kancey. They were without All-Pro safety Antoine Winfield Jr. They played their second game in a row without right tackle Luke Goedeke. Those absences have a lot to do with how the Bucs were manhandled on both sides of the line. But it's still not enough of an excuse for Mayfield getting sacked seven times while Nix completed 25-of-36 passes and scrambled for 47 yards. And it doesn't explain Mike Evans being held to 17 receiving yards, or Rachaad White averaging 2.1 yards per carry after three games. "We got our asses kicked - physicality-wise, execution-wise, all over the board," Mayfield said. On his wish list, Bowles had the Bucs going undefeated at Raymond James Stadium while playing .500 on the road. That would have been a tall order, but it's disappointing to see it wiped out before October rolled around. But at least the Bucs have a better understanding of what's ahead of them. The illusion of the first two weeks was quickly washed away and the team's weaknesses have been laid bare. Were the Bucs too cocky? Did they take Denver lightly? Opinions varied in the locker room on those questions, but everyone agreed the effort was somehow lacking. "For whatever reason we didn't match their intensity, their physicality. Just overall, we didn't match their level of play," said edge rusher Joe Tryon-Shoyinka. "Props to them, they came out and hit us in the mouth. Now, we've got to kind of rebuild and find a way to come out with more fire next time." And now one of the youngest rosters in the NFL is due for some soul searching. Player after player said they would need to review the video to figure out how things went so wrong so quickly. The simplest explanation: The kids got spanked. John Romano, Tampa Bay Times, published 23 September 2024