The NFL will release its schedule next month, and among the games to watch are the Buccaneers’ NFC South matchups against the Falcons.
Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield added some spice to an already spicy rivalry after the Falcons named Kevin Stefanski their new head coach. The two men spent two seasons together in Cleveland. It apparently was one season too long.
In a social media post, Mayfield accused Stefanski of not contacting him after a 2022 trade to the Panthers, accusing the coach of treating him “like a piece of garbage.” Mayfield also pointedly said, “Can’t wait to see you twice a year, coach.”
Last week, Bucs coach Todd Bowles told Josina Anderson of the Exhibit News Network that Mayfield and Stefanski would have to decide it on the field.
“I think that’s something that they have to figure out from that standpoint since we can’t have a boxing match where they get in the ring with each other and knock each other out,” Bowles told Anderson. “You know we’re going to back our guy Baker, and I’m sure they’re going to back their coach as well. It’s a division game, so it’s already going to be a tough-fought, hard-fought game, so it just adds to it.”
Stefanski took the high road in his response to Mayfield, who has since downplayed his initial remarks.
Bucs Clips
The Buccaneers signed offensive tackle Justin Skule on Monday, the team announced.
Skule, 29, previously spent 2022-24 with the Bucs, appearing in 35 games with five starts.
He entered the NFL as a sixth-round pick of the 49ers in 2019, and he spent his first three seasons in San Francisco. Skule signed with the Bucs’ practice squad early in the 2022 season after the 49ers cut him.
Skule was with the Vikings last season, playing 16 games with nine starts. He saw a career-high 578 snaps.
In his career, Skule has appeared in 82 career games, including 26 starts.
Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts has a record of 57-25 in the regular season, and 6-4 in the playoffs. Against the Buccaneers, however, Hurts has gone 2-4.
Former Tampa Bay linebacker Lavonte David, appearing recently on The Arena, explained the Buccaneers’ approach to playing defense against the Eagles with Hurts at the helm.
David said they focused stopping the running game, and forcing Hurts and the Eagles to beat them in the passing game.
“Our whole game plan was just give him different looks,” David said. “It was one year when we beat him in the playoffs. We was playing straight cover zero. Cover one and cover zero made him want to beat us. . . . In 2023, the game prior to that, they had a great run game. They ran the ball over us . . . So our game plan [for the playoff game] was just, like, you know, we’re gonna make Jalen Hurts beat us, you know, we’re gonna keep him in the pocket, make him make his reads, make him understand what defense he’s seeing and stuff like that, and make him beat us.”
David reasoned that the Eagles didn’t ask Hurts to do much in the passing game. Some may say Hurts is the one who wanted to keep it simple. Still, the revolving door of offensive coordinators surely has been a factor.
Whatever the reasons for the inability of the Eagles to take advantage of Tampa Bay’s focus on stopping the run, the Eagles have struggled against the Buccaneers. And the Buccaneers, as David has explained it, have prioritized neutralizing the running game and daring the Eagles and Hurts to beat them through the air.
Tampa Bay surely isn’t the only team to play the Eagles that way. Few have managed to win 66.6 percent of their games against Philadelphia since Hurts became the starter. With the Eagles breaking in another new coordinator, and presumably installing a McVay-style attack, the franchise is at an inflection point that will require Hurts to do more.
Whether he hasn’t been asked to do more in the past or has resisted, this year the Eagles will be putting more on his plate. What he does with it will say plenty about whether the 27-year-old Hurts finishes the decade as the team’s starting quarterback.
Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield has a reputation for playing through anything. In 2025, he may have been playing through everything.
Retired Tampa Bay linebacker Lavonte David recently opened up about Baker’s many bumps and bruises during an appearance on The Arena.
“The season’s over now, I can talk about it,” David said, via JoeBucsFan.com. “Man, Baker was going through a lot, bro. Baker had a lot of injuries that you didn’t expect a quarterback to play through. You know what I’m saying? He had the oblique injury, he had the shoulder injury, he had a lot of things. You know, ankle injury, knee injury. . . . He was really trying to push through and really trying to be the player that we needed him to be.”
Mayfield started all 17 games. He was listed as questionable only twice. In Week 4, he was questionable with a right biceps injury. In Week 13, Mayfield was questionable with a left shoulder injury.
In all, Mayfield appeared on the injury report for 10 games: Week 3 (foot/toe), Week 4 (right biceps), Week 5 (right knee/biceps), Week 8 (knee), Week 10 (knee/oblique), Week 12 (illness), Week 13 (left shoulder), Week 14 (left shoulder), Week 15 (left shoulder), Week 18 (right shoulder/knee).
And that’s just the stuff that was listed. If he didn’t get treatment and/or otherwise kept it to himself (David mentioned an ankle injury that was never listed), it wouldn’t have been listed.
Bottom line? Mayfield is tough, determined, and able to play through injury. It gets potentially awkward if/when the team thinks a backup at 100 percent would be better than Mayfield at something less than that. If that question ever emerged for the Bucs in 2025, they did a very good job of keeping it quiet.
Defensive lineman Rakeem “Nacho” Nunez-Roches has agreed to a one-year deal to return to the Buccaneers, Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times reports.
Nunez-Roches, 32, spent the past three seasons with the Giants.
In 2025, he played only nine games due to an ankle injury. Nunez-Roches still set a career-high with three sacks and made 23 tackles.
Nunez-Roches previously spent five seasons with the Bucs, playing 68 games with 22 starts from 2018-22. He won a Super Bowl ring when the Bucs won it all in the 2020 season.
The Chiefs made Nunez-Roches a sixth-round pick in 2015. He was in Kansas City for three seasons.
The Buccaneers began last season 5-1 and were 6-2 before their off week. It was all downhill from there.
Tampa Bay lost seven of its last nine games, finishing 8-9 and out of the postseason. It was the first time since 2020 the Bucs didn’t win the NFC South.
Todd Bowles, though, kept his job and will get a fifth season in Tampa.
At the NFL owners meetings this week, owner Joel Glazer gave Bowles a vote of confidence.
“I think we had some significant challenges we had to deal with last year,” Glazer said, via Matt Matera of the Pewter Report. “It was unfortunate down the stretch -- frustrating down the stretch -- but you see week in and week out, this team plays hard for Todd. Nobody lays down. You have the odd game where things don’t quite go your way, but every game until the final whistle, these players are fighting, fighting, fighting.”
Bowles is 35-33, and despite his three division titles, the Bucs have winning records in only two of his four seasons. They have double-digit wins just once since Bowles replaced Bruce Arians, who won the Super Bowl in 2020.
Glazer said no one wants to win more than Bowles.
“I’d say as a franchise, everybody’s goal is to win the Super Bowl every year,” Glazer said. “That’s your hope, but only one team does win the Super Bowl every year. In any given season you’ve got to look at the season, look at how things went, look at where the franchise is at, look at the totality of the situation as year in and year out. That’s how you evaluate things. Last season started out great – didn’t end so well. Obviously, we were disappointed. Obviously, our fans were disappointed, but there’s a little more to it.
“Every team has injuries, but there were significant injuries last year at significant positions. There were a lot of close games down the stretch that didn’t go our way. But we’re trying to build a championship team. You can try and throw a dart every year -- or you can try and build a Super Bowl winning team. We feel like we had a great team and we’re constantly building, building, building -- adding to the foundations that we have.”
Offseason programs will start getting underway around the NFL next week.
The ten teams that hired new coaches this offseason will be eligible to start working with their players on Monday, April 6. The Ravens are the only team that has set that as their first day of work while the Cardinals, Falcons, Bills, Browns, Raiders, Dolphins, Giants, Steelers and Titans have set Tuesday as their opening day.
All of those teams will also be able to hold a voluntary minicamp later in the spring. Every team is also scheduled to hold a rookie minicamp and a mandatory minicamp over the course of the next few months.
The first two weeks of work for all teams is limited to meetings, strength and conditioning, and physical rehabilitation only. The three-week second phase allows for on-field work, but no full-speed team drills while the third OTA phase allows for team drills, but there is no live contact allowed at any point in the offseason.
Most of the 22 teams with returning coaches will be opening their offseason programs on April 20 or 21. The Broncos have set May 4 as their first day.
Plenty of teams are looking to build new stadiums or renovate their current ones. Add the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the list.
Via the Tampa Bay Times, the Buccaneers plan to meet next week with the Tampa Sports Authority to discuss a renovation of Raymond James Stadium. The project is expected to cost roughly $1 billion.
The facility opened in 1998. Ownership has said upgrades are needed to position Tampa to host another Super Bowl and/or the college football championship.
The report indicates that a full renovation would require the Buccaneers to spend a season elsewhere. The most likely destination is Orlando’s Camping World Stadium, which will accommodate the Jaguars in 2027.
Ultimately, the renovation comes down to whether and to what extent the state will pay for it, and whether and to what extent the Buccaneers will.
The Buccaneers waived wide receiver Jaden Smith on Thursday, according to the NFL’s transactions wire.
Smith, 24, signed with the team as an undrafted free agent out of Nevada in 2025. He won a job with a tryout in the team’s rookie minicamp.
He was injured in training camp and started and finished his rookie season on injured reserve.
Smith also played college ball at Montana State and Tarleton State before finishing at Nevada. In 45 total games with those three programs, he caught 138 passes for 2,100 yards and 20 touchdowns.
After setting career highs with 62 catches and 849 yards in 2024, Smith earned All-Mountain West Conference honorable mention honors.
Veteran linebacker Anthony Walker will not be back for a 10th season in the NFL.
Walker announced his retirement on Thursday via a post on his Instagram account.
Walker played at Northwestern before being drafted by the Colts in the fifth round in 2017. He spent four seasons in Indianapolis and had 343 tackles, 3.5 sacks, three interceptions, a forced fumble and two fumble recoveries during his time with the team.
The Browns signed Walker in 2021 and he spent three seasons in Cleveland. He had 170 tackles, a sack, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery in that action.
Walker wrapped up his career by playing for the Dolphins and the Buccaneers over the last two seasons.
