It gets a little exhausting when an NFL franchise finds motivation from the fact that: (1) the team hasn’t performed up to snuff; and (2) others have noticed.
Regardless, every team needs a reason to try a little harder. For the Bucs, their late-season collapse has created an earned narrative that they’ll now try to defy.
“I think we’re going to shock a lot of people this year,” Mayfield said Tuesday, via JoeBucsFan.com. “And so I’m excited.”
And, yes, the motivation is coming from the noise that the Bucs aren’t expected to fare very well, after missing the playoffs last year for the first time since 2019.
“You can’t avoid it,” Mayfield said. “The TVs [are] everywhere. Everybody’s picking us probably to have a losing record.”
Well, they had a losing record last year. A 6-2 start was followed by a 2-7 finish and, thanks to the Falcons beating the Saints on the last Sunday of the season, a lost tiebreaker to the Panthers for the NFC South crown.
The 2026 road for the Bucs begins in Ohio, against the Bengals. Baker relishes starting the season on the road.
“You’re with your guys, and it’s just the Bucs against everybody else in that city you’re going to, and so I think it’s a good opportunity for us against the Bengals,” Mayfield said.
The Buccaneers pulled off a road upset in Mayfield’s first game with the team, beating the Vikings to start the 2023 season. The Bucs won their first road game in 2024, upsetting the Lions at Ford Field. Last year, Tampa Bay beat the Falcons in Atlanta to open the regular season.
The Bucs will need a fast start and something other than last year’s disintegration in order to get back to the postseason. And they’ll be using the natural conclusions drawn from the sluggishness to cap 2025 as the spark for 2026.
