Tampa Bay got back on the winning track Sunday with their 26-14 win over the Minnesota Vikings to move to 8-5 on the season and maintain their wild card playoff hopes.
Below is our list of the most disappointing players in the win.
CB Sean Murphy-Bunting
With the recent struggles of the Bucs secondary, the hope was that Sean Murphy-Bunting would take the bye week and get back to the confident, play-maker we saw to end the 2019 season. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case on Sunday, and from the first drive to the end of the game, Murphy -Bunting had little positive impact on the game.
Besides being beaten a handful of times by Vikings’ receivers, Murphy-Bunting looked completely lost on a successful two-point attempt and failed to show much effort in getting off his block and attempt to tackle the receiver. Murphy-Bunting finished the afternoon with five tackles but no interceptions for pass breakups.
LB Devin White
Despite finishing the game second on the team with nine tackles, linebacker Devin White didn’t have his best afternoon of football and really struggled – as he has most of the season – in pass coverage. It wasn’t just in defending the pass, White also was part of a defense that allowed their first 100-yard rusher since Week 9 of last season against the Seahawks. White didn’t record a pass breakup and was also manhandled or out of position on a number of running play by the Vikings. Minnesota finished the day with 162 yards on the ground including 41 by quarterback Kirk Cousins.
Bucs Run Defense
As mentioned above, Tampa Bay surrendered their first 100-yard rusher since Week 9 of last season against the Seahawks when Chris Carson passed the century mark against the Bucs defense. The Bucs knew Vikings running back Dalvin Cook would be handful and that proved that to be the case, but not many inside the locker room thought Cook would have 110 total yards from scrimmage against the league’s top run defense. There were just too many big holes and missed tackles, things uncharacteristic from what we’ve seen from Todd Bowles’ defense over the last two seasons.