On a rainy day in Tampa, the Buccaneers are off to a hot start.
Baker Mayfield fired an 18-yard touchdown pass to Cade Otton to cap Tampa Bay’s opening drive, giving the Bucs an early 7-0 lead.
Tampa Bay used a heavy dose of Bucky Irving to start the day, with the running back taking five carries for 24 yards — including a 4-yard run on third-and-2 to move the chains.
Mayfield was 3-of-3 on the first possession for 41 yards, with two of those passes going to Otton. The third was a 13-yard pass on the right sideline to Mike Evans.
Mayfield was also clearly looking to set the tone, lowering his shoulder to finish a 9-yard scramble.
Otton’s touchdown was his first of the year. He previously had the most targets this year without a TD with 72.
As expected, the Buccaneers will have their left tackle back for Saturday’s game against the Panthers.
While he missed last week with a toe injury, Tristan Wirfs is active for the key Week 18 matchup.
Wirfs was listed as a non-participant on Tuesday before he was limited on Wednesday and Thursday.
The Buccaneers will also have defensive lineman Calijah Kancey. He’s active after coming off of injured reserve with a pectoral injury. He has not played since Sept. 15. Kancey — a first-round pick in 2023 — had 7.5 sacks last year.
Receiver Chris Godwin was added to the injury report with an illness, but did not have a change in his game status and is active.
For the Panthers, defensive tackle Tershawn Wharton is inactive after he was listed as questionable with a hamstring injury. Wharton was listed as a full participant on the injury reports this week, but will miss another game. He hasn’t played since Nov. 30.
Carolina’s remaining inactives are receiver Hunter Renfrow, cornerback Robert Rochell, safety Demani Richardson, safety D’Anthony Bell, linebacker Claudin Cherelus, and defensive tackle Jared Harrison-Hunte.
The Buccaneers’ inactives are quarterback Connor Bazelak, cornerback Jamel Dean, linebacker Anthony Nelson, receiver Sterling Shepard, guard Eljah Klein, and defensive lineman Elijah Simmons.
Hours before a critical regular-season finale against the Panthers, the Buccaneers have made an update to their injury report.
Receiver Chris Godwin has been added to the list with an illness. There has been no change in his game status; he is expected to play.
Whether that means he’ll get a full workload remains to be seen. The team isn’t required to disclose that. He could, in theory, be limited in his total snaps based on the illness.
In eight games this season with five starts, Godwin has 32 catches for 352 yards and two touchdowns. He had seven catches for 108 yards and a touchdown against Miami in Week 17. That was his first 100-yard game of the year.
All other Buccaneers receivers on the active roster are healthy entering Tampa Bay’s win-or-go-home(-and-maybe-go-home-on-Sunday) showdown for the NFC South crown.
The NFL’s two best rookie receivers will take the field today, with first place in the NFC South up for grabs.
Buccaneers wide receiver Emeka Egbuka and Panthers wide receiver Tetairoa McMillan have been the two best rookie receivers in the league all season, and through 16 games, their stats are almost identical.
Egbuka has 62 catches for 930 yards and six touchdowns.
McMillan has 66 catches for 929 yards and seven touchdowns.
Early in the season, Egbuka was the favorite to win the NFL’s offensive rookie of the year award. As the season has gone on, Egbuka’s numbers and his team’s fortunes have declined, while McMillan and the Panthers have improved, and now McMillan is the betting favorite to win rookie of the year.
Only one of them will make the playoffs. If McMillan’s Panthers win or tie today, they win the NFC South. The Panthers would also win the NFC South if the Falcons win tomorrow. For Egbuka and the Buccaneers to win the NFC South, they need to win today and the Falcons need to lose tomorrow.
Egbuka and McMillan can both make a good closing argument today that they deserve to be the offensive rookie of the year. Egbuka’s team, however, will be rooting for another offensive rookie of the year candidate, Saints quarterback Tyler Shough, having a big game tomorrow and upsetting the Falcons. A Saints win could earn Shough the rookie of the year award, and Egbuka would likely take that deal.
We’ve been watching the various hot spots for potential postseason changes since the middle of November. One name that has become more conspicuous down the homestretch of the season is Buccaneers coach Todd Bowles.
At a time when few clear and obvious separations seem to be coming (the Raiders and Pete Carroll are the most evident), others who may be on the way out may also not be on the way out. And Bowles falls squarely into that category.
Maybe he’s safe, maybe he’s not.
Buccaneers ownership typically hold its cards very close to the vest. Which results in surprise moves. In early 2009, the Bucs stunned everyone by firing Jon Gruden and promoting Raheem Morris from defensive backs coach. In 2016, the Buccaneers surprisingly fired Lovie Smith and promoted offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter.
Then came the late March departure of Bruce Arians in 2022. It was presented as a voluntary retirement. The circumstances suggested it was linked to the unretirement of Tom Brady. And the end result was the promotion of defensive coordinator Todd Bowles, given that it was far too late to conduct a traditional search.
Bowles went 8-9 in 2022, winning the division and losing in the wild-card round to the Cowboys. In 2023, the Bucs and Bowles won the division again, with a 9-8 record. They upended the disintegrating Eagles in the first round, 32-9, before giving the Lions a better game than even Bowles seemed to realize in the divisional round. Last year, the Bucs went 10-7 and lost to the Commanders in the wild-card round.
Currently 7-9, Bowles’s overall record in nearly four full seasons is 34-33. A loss later today will drop the Bucs under Bowles to .500. (Including playoffs, he’s 35-36.)
The expectations were higher this year, and a 6-2 start in the league’s weakest top-to-bottom division made another playoff berth a no-brainer. If they fail to win today — or if they win and the Falcons win tomorrow — they will have blown what had seemed to be firmly in the bag.
If the Bucs don’t claim the NFC South crown, they’ll witness their last two offensive coordinators (Dave Canales and Liam Coen) in the postseason (with the Panthers and Jaguars, respectively) while Tampa Bay is sitting at home. That alone could be enough to get them to favor a shift to an offensive-minded coach, confident that successful seasons won’t result in an ongoing revolving door at offensive coordinator.
A separate question is whether the Bucs might blow it all up, like they did in 2009 with the firings of both Gruden and G.M. Bruce Allen. Jason Licht has held the position since 2014. He built the team that won a Super Bowl and that has been to the playoffs five straight seasons.
If the argument is that Bowles didn’t do enough with a capable team, the issue isn’t the talent. If ownership concludes that the talent isn’t where it needs to be, that’s a different issue.
However it plays out, we’ll keep waiting for ownership to fire, or not, the one specific cannon that gets loaded and lit without much warning, and at times when no one expected the loud bang.
