Bucs OLB Haason Reddick – Photo by: Jeffrey Jones/PR 

A new Pewter Report Roundtable debuts every Tuesday on PewterReport.com. Each week, the Pewter Reporters tackle another tough Bucs question. This week's prompt: What do the Bucs need to clean up most heading into Week 2?

Scott Reynolds: More Sacks From The Bucs Defense, Please

Bucs head coach Todd Bowles was right when he said his defensive line left a few sacks on the field after Sunday's 23-20 win in Atlanta over the divisional rival Falcons. New outside linebacker Haason Reddick had the only sack on the day for Tampa Bay, but even he missed a few other opportunities. But what I did like about Reddick's sack was that came on the money down – third down – and forced the Falcons to kick a field goal to cut the Bucs' lead to 17-13 in the third quarter.

Bucs OLB Yaya Diaby and DT Calijah Kancey and Falcons QB Michael Penix Jr. – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

I can't wait to see Reddick, who finished with a team-high seven pressures on Sunday, get to the quarterback more often this year as he becomes more in tune with Bowles' defensive schemes. Reddick brings speed, tenacity and experience off the edge for the Bucs – all three of those components were missing in last year's pass rush from the outside linebacker room.

Yaya Diaby, who only had 4.5 sacks last year to lead the outside linebackers, had a first half sack negated by a facemask penalty on Jamel Dean. So Tampa Bay could've – and should've – had more sacks against Atlanta. While defensive tackle Vita Vea had a good game versus the Falcons, Calijah Kancey was held in check and didn't even show up on the stats sheet. The Bucs need more sack production from their front four, but also the blitzers that Bowles sends need to get home more often as well.

Houston's up next and the Texans have a shaky offensive line. Let's see some more sacks from the Buccaneers on Monday Night Football in primetime.

Matt Matera: Bucs DBs Need To Catch The Damn Ball

I'm getting tired of watching the Bucs squander opportunity after opportunity to take the ball away week after week. It's not just that they're dropping the football, they're missing the absolutely easiest of easy interceptions. Bucs head coach Todd Bowles said there were three opportunities for the defense to record an interception on Sunday, and the players missed it every time. Two of those were on cornerback Zyon McCollum while the other was on cornerback Jamel Dean.

Bucs CB Zyon McCollum – Photo by: USA Today

McCollum, fresh off his new contract extension, was the main culprit on Sunday. A deflected pass off the helmet of Vita Vea while the Falcons were in the red zone went right through his hands. He was roughly 15 yards down the field and had plenty of time to adjust to the deflection and just couldn't catch it. Later, he dropped an even easier interception that just went off his hands. It would have been negated anyway due to a roughing the passer penalty, but the point still remains that McCollum has not shown he can consistently catch the ball and take it away.

Remember when Bowles said he wanted ballhawks on this team? It sure looked like they got the message in the preseason when the defense produced six in the first two games. The Buccaneers defenders have it in them, including McCollum, but they need to get their act together. Great teams don't miss opportunities too much. The Bucs do it in droves, unfortunately.

Bailey Adams: Bucs Need Better Run Blocking From Makeshift O-Line

For the most part, the Bucs' makeshift offensive line was a success in Sunday's season-opening win over the Falcons. The unit, which saw Graham Barton kick out to left tackle, Ben Bredeson slide over to center and Michael Jordan step in at left guard, did a fantastic job protecting Baker Mayfield and made the Atlanta pass rush pretty much a non-factor. But if there's one thing I'd like to see cleaned up with this group before Monday night's game in Houston, it's in the run game.

The Bucs run game wasn't disastrous by any means on Sunday, even if it only gained 62 yards on 18 carries outside of Mayfield's scrambles. As Josh Queipo pointed out in his breakdown of the offensive line's performance on Sunday, Tampa Bay also lost 18 yards on another two carries due to penalties – one due to a holding call on Barton and the other being a defensive offsides penalty that the offense accepted, erasing a 7-yard Sean Tucker run.

Bucs RB Sean Tucker and LT Graham Barton – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Still, given the talent the Bucs have in their backfield, the run game should be a massive strength for this offense. And far too often on Sunday, Bucky Irving ran into a tackler either at or behind the line of scrimmage. There wasn't a whole lot of room for him to work with, leaving him with just 2.6 yards per carry on 14 attempts. Barton and Jordan graded out below the 50 mark in run blocking, per PFF, while Cody Mauch only earned a 56.5 grade.

Come Monday night, I'd love to see this offensive line unit regularly open up wider running lanes for Irving and the rest of the backfield. If that happens, we'll see a much more effective Buccaneers offense than the one that had an up-and-down afternoon against Atlanta. We'll also see a more balanced time of possession, unlike the 35:12 to 24:48 advantage the Falcons had in Week 1.

Josh Queipo: Offense's Opening Script Needs Work

Despite moving the ball enough for what should have been 24 points in week one, the Bucs offense got off to about as lackluster of a start as you can imagine. The first two drives consisted of consecutive three and outs, as Josh Grizzard's play script led to just seven yards of total offense in the first quarter. Quarterback Baker Mayfield began the game missing on his first six throws and it looked like Atlanta's defense was the second coming of the Steel Curtain.

Bucs OC Josh Grizzard – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Grizzard was able to adjust from there, with five of the next seven drives getting into scoring position. But that's a tough start to try and come back from. Some offensive coordinators use an opening script to attack. Others use it to gain information for later in the game. By my measure Grizzard falls into the second category. And that's fine, but he has to have some easy buckets mixed in there. Atlanta was ready for the play-action boot he opened the season with. They knew second down would be a run. The third-and-eight was a good call and had Sterling Shepard open, but a corner route is one of the harder throws to hit with one of the smallest margins of error.

Looking at 2024 of the 34 first and second offensive drives of games the Bucs scored on 18 and had a missed field goal on another while averaging 3.6 points per drive. That's fantastic efficiency and was a big part of their success last year. Starting fast helped the team finish strong. Grizzard will need to take a look at how he's positioning his offense to keep up a similar pace going forward.

Adam Slivon: Money McLaughlin Needs Get Back To Cashing Kicks

Chase McLaughlin has been just about automatic since finding a home with the Bucs after signing as a free agent in 2023. For all the talk about Baker Mayfield setting roots down in Tampa Bay, McLaughlin did the same after being a journeyman kicker throughout his NFL career. Playing on his eighth team, McLaughlin has earned a reputation for being money. But on Sunday afternoon against the Falcons, Chase Bank was closed.

Bucs K Chase McLaughlin – Photo by: USA Today

He missed a 44-yard field goal attempt wide left in the third quarter when the game was tied at 10, and then missed an extra point with less than a minute left after the Bucs drove down the field to score a clutch touchdown. Had he made it, it would have been a 24-20 game, making it even more difficult for Atlanta to drive down and win the game with a touchdown drive of their own. Instead, McLaughlin's miss gave them a chance to tie it with a field goal. If not for Younghoe Koo's own late-game blunder, we could very well be looking at him in a much different light.

Now you might say, everyone has an off game. I completely get that, especially in Week 1. Considering McLaughlin missed just two of his 32 field goals and two of his 56 extra point attempts last year, one expects him to bounce back. What the team cannot afford is for him to regress and go through the season-by-season volatility other kickers have gone through. Chase McLaughlin can always be counted on for an automatic three points, and his misses need to be cleaned up going forward and for his first game to be just a blip on the radar.