Bucs head coach Todd Bowles and DT Vita Vea – Photo by: Jeffrey Jones/PR

It’s time for Scott Reynolds’ 2-Point Conversion post-game column, which features two statements, two questions and two predictions based on the latest Bucs game.

The Bucs defense had an absolutely terrible performance in Buffalo, surrendering six touchdowns to Bills quarterback Josh Allen in a 44-32 loss that drops the team to 6-4. Tampa Bay’s offense ran the ball for 202 yards, led by Sean Tucker’s 106-yard day and career-high three touchdowns (two rushing, one receiving), but it wasn’t enough to overcome a terrible showing by Todd Bowles’ unit. The Bucs’ lead in the NFC South is now just half a game over the 6-5 Panthers, who beat the Falcons in overtime to sweep Atlanta this season.

2 BIG STATEMENTS

STATEMENT 1. Todd Bowles’ Bucs Defense Was Horrific In Loss

Last week after the Bucs’ 28-23 loss to the Patriots, head coach Todd Bowles called out his defensive players – including some notable veterans – in a team meeting on Monday.

On Monday following Tampa Bay’s 44-32 loss at Buffalo, Bowles needs to call himself out.

Because this loss was mostly on him as a head coach and defensive play-caller.

Let’s look at Bowles the defensive play-caller first.

His defense surrendered six – SIX! – touchdowns to Josh Allen on Sunday. Three through the air and three on the ground, which set an NFL record. Allen became the only quarterback since the merger to throw for three TDs and rush for three against the Rams last year on December 8, and now he’s become the only QB to achieve that mark twice.

Bucs CB Benjamin Morrison and FS Antoine Winfield Jr. and Bills QB Josh Allen – Photo by: USA Today

After pressuring Allen early on blitzes by safety Tykee Smith and inside linebacker SirVocea Dennis, which forced an errant pass by Allen to be picked off by nickelback Jacob Parrish on the first drive, Bowles seemed to take his foot off the gas. Instead of pressuring Allen more, he seemed to blitz Allen less as the game went on. I have yet to go back and watch the film, but at first glance that’s what appeared to happen.

I know that rushing three defenders and dropping eight into coverage proved to be futile, as the elusive Allen bought enough time moving around the pocket to where he found open receivers like Tyrell Shavers for a 43-yard touchdown. If Bowles was worried that sending too many blitzers at Allen would result in giving up too many big plays, doing the opposite netted the same result.

“Sometimes it’s coverage, sometimes it’s pass rush,” Bowles said. “At the same time, it’s got to get fixed. We’re playing hard and then we have lapses here, and lapses there. Then we give up a play. That happened in the second half and two times in the first half. You can’t play … if we’re covering, we’re not getting to the quarterback. If we’re getting to the quarterback, we’re not covering long enough. There’s got to be a lot on the coaches, starting with me from a defensive side of the ball. We have to get that fixed going forward.”

The problem was more about the lack of pass rush than it was the lack of coverage.

Bills QB Josh Allen and Bucs ILB SirVocea Dennis – Photo by: Jeffrey Jones/PR

The Bucs defense failed to record a sack on Sunday and Allen was hit just one time – outside of a roughing the passer penalty on Logan Hall. Not nearly good enough. And inside the red zone, Allen killed the Bucs on the ground, rushing for three scores.

Instead of making it difficult for Allen on Sunday, Bowles’ schemes, such as dropping outside linebackers Yaya Diaby and Anthony Nelson into coverage too often, made life easy for the reigning NFL MVP. Allen completed 19-of-30 passes for 317 yards with three touchdowns and two interceptions while rushing for 40 yards and three TDs on six carries (6.7 avg.).

As a head coach on Sunday, Bowles failed in key game management areas – really for the first time all year. With Tampa Bay trailing 37-32 with 7:28 left in regulation at the team’s own 39-yard line, Bowles elected to punt instead of going for it on offense.

Despite the fact that his defense had not truly stopped Allen and the Bills offense all day, Bowles stubbornly thought that this time would be different. Instead, Allen would march Buffalo down the field on a nine-play touchdown drive that gave the Bills a two-touchdown lead at 44-32 with just 2:42 left.

Bowles failed to properly read the room. This was not his defense’s day, despite coming up with two interceptions.

“There was plenty of time,” Bowles said. “We felt like we had a chance. It was early in the fourth quarter. We felt like we had a chance and didn’t want to give them a short field there.”

Bills QB Josh Allen – Photo by: Jeffrey Jones/PR

That decision turned out to be wrong as the Bucs didn’t stop Allen from getting touchdown No. 6 on the day. The 44 points allowed in Buffalo was the most by a Bowles-coached defense in Tampa Bay since his arrival in 2019.

Bowles also made a questionable decision to go for a two-point conversion to try to lead by seven points in the third quarter. Instead, Baker Mayfield’s pass was incomplete and Tampa Bay had a 26-21 lead. I don’t see the logic in going for two points with the lead when that wasn’t necessary.

After a Bills field goal on their next possession, the Bucs’ lead was cut to 26-24 – a two-point lead instead of a three-point lead had Bowles just opted to kick the extra point. Then after another Bills touchdown gave Buffalo a 31-26 lead, Bowles opted for another two-point conversion, which failed again. The Bucs led 32-31 at that point, but had Tampa Bay kicked both extra points, the team would have been up 34-31, leading by a field goal.

In the end, it didn’t matter as the Bucs lost by 12. But I’m not usually a fan of going for two points unless the team is trailing and it’s necessary.

Analytics might say otherwise, but again, Bowles needs to read the room. The Bucs are not good at going for two this year, converting just 1-of-7 attempts on the season.

STATEMENT 2. A Needed Rebound Game For Baker Mayfield

Baker Mayfield wasn’t perfect on Sunday. He completed 57% of his passes for 173 yards with one touchdown and one interception. But he wasn’t the problem in Buffalo, nor was he the reason why Tampa Bay lost.

Shake ‘n Bake was back, and that was great to see.

The scrambling, rambling version of Mayfield that we saw lead the Bucs to a 5-1 start returned on Sunday against the Bills. Mayfield’s timely runs were the secret sauce that has been missing for Tampa Bay’s offense, which erupted for 32 points against the Bills. That was the second-highest point total of the year.

Bucs QB Baker Mayfield – Photo by: USA Today

Mayfield ran for 39 yards and a touchdown on five carries (7.8 avg.) and was showing no ill effects from his previous knee and oblique injuries that prevented him from rushing for any yards in the last three games.

“We weren’t trying to get him to run more,” Bucs head coach Todd Bowles said. “We had two design plays where they were minor runs, but he tried to win the ball game. He’s a competitor. Obviously, he’s a little healthier. He hadn’t been hit as much, so he took advantage of certain things and he made the best of them.”

Tampa Bay ran for a season-high 202 yards and three touchdowns, including two scores by Sean Tucker, who led the way with a season-high 106 yards rushing. Tucker also caught a 28-yard pass from Mayfield to cap off a career-high three-touchdown day.

“He got started off hot early, and we went with the hot hand,” Bowles said about Tucker’s performance. “And once you get a hot hand we kind of leave you in there regardless of who the back is, and today it was him. And he did a great job today.”

Scoring 32 points should be enough to win most games on the schedule. In fact, if Tampa Bay had scored 32 points in every game this year the team would be 8-2 right now.

“When you score 32 points you’re supposed to win,” Bowles said.

2 PROBING QUESTIONS

QUESTION 1. Where Were The Bucs’ Star Players On Defense?

Nowhere to be found. We saw star cornerback Jamel Dean, who leads the Bucs with three interceptions and two forced fumbles, exit the game after two plays due to a hip injury. And we saw his replacement, rookie cornerback Benjamin Morrison, fall asleep in coverage in Cover 4 and give up a 43-yard touchdown pass to someone named Tyrell Shavers, a backup receiver. I’ve never heard for Shavers before, but he somehow had four catches for 90 yards and a touchdown to lead all Bills receivers.

The Bills also got a 52-yard touchdown on a screen pass to backup running back Ty Johnson. He’s another guy I’ve never heard of before Sunday’s game. Sorry, I’m not well versed in AFC teams like the Bills.

But I have heard of guys like defensive tackle Vita Vea (zero sacks), safety Antoine Winfield Jr. (six tackles) and cornerback Zyon McCollum (six tackles). Vea makes an average of $17.75 million per year, Winfield makes an average of $21.025 million per year and McCollum makes an average of $16 million per year. None of them made a difference on Sunday. Nor did outside linebacker Yaya Diaby (two tackles), the team’s leading sacker.

Bucs DT Vita Vea and Bills QB Josh Allen – Photo by: USA Today

Vea has had a total of six tackles in the last three games and no sacks. Diaby hasn’t had a sack in the last three games, either. Winfield looked like Superman in New Orleans, but he’s resembled Clark Kent in the last two losses. McCollum has yet to make a splash play all year despite getting a massive, three-year contract extension in August, which looks like a bad idea right now.

Tykee Smith was the most impactful playmaker on the team on Sunday – as he’s been all year – with five tackles and two pass breakups. One of those tipped passes was intercepted by inside linebacker SirVocea Dennis, who also came on a blitz and forced Josh Allen to panic and throw an interception to nickelback Jacob Parrish.

But the problem for Todd Bowles defense is that outside of wins over Jets, 49ers and Saints, he has not had more than one superhero show up on game day.

During the Bucs’ heyday back in the Monte Kiffin days, Tampa Bay had a lot of playmakers with the likes of Warren Sapp, Derrick Brooks, John Lynch, Ronde Barber and Hardy Nickerson (in the late 1990s) and Simeon Rice (in the early 2000s). Out of that handful of superstar defenders, at least two or three would show up with big games on a regular basis each week.

The same could be said for the 2020-2021 Bucs under head coach Bruce Arians when Bowles was the defensive coordinator. The Bucs had a younger Lavonte David, outside linebacker Shaq Barrett and Jason Pierre-Paul, Vea and a much better version of Devin White. Again, chances are two or three of those big-time Bucs would show up and make plays in any given week.

That’s not happening right now, and it’s a big concern. Talk is cheap, but the contracts of some of the superstars aren’t. It’s time for some action. It’s time for more of these Bucs stars to shine more often than they are.

“The effort was there – the playmaking was not,” said Bowles after the game.

QUESTION 2. Why Couldn’t The Bucs Cover Kicks?

Who knows? But it was ridiculous. The Bucs are missing special teams ace Markees Watts, who is good in kickoff coverage, but that’s not the reason why the team allowed a pitiful 39 yards per kick return to the Bills. This was a total unit breakdown that surrendered a 61-yard return to Mecole Hardman and allowed Ray Davis to average 39.5 yards per kick return on four attempts, including a 41-yard return and a pair of 44-yarders.

As a result of their fantastic kick returns, the Bills had two drives start in Tampa Bay territory – at the Bucs’ 36-yard line and the Bucs’ 46-yard line. Buffalo scored a touchdown and a field goal on those possessions.

Bills KR Ray Davis – Photo by: USA Today

What was maddening was that after the first two long returns, why didn’t Todd Bowles have Chase McLaughlin kick the ball into the end zone, which would have resulted in the Bills starting at their 35-yard line, or out of bounds, which would have given Buffalo the ball at its own 40?

“We talked about kicking it out of bounds and in the end zone, and we never got it there,” Bowles said. “Not very good. We were playing seven-on-seven football starting from the midfield and beyond the entire game. That’s tough to do in the NFL consistently throughout. So the kickoff coverage in the field position really killed us.”

Tampa Bay’s special teams have been anything but special this year. With a slew of blocked kicks and punts early in the season, and not being able to cover kicks against Buffalo, it’s hard to imagine special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey keeping his job in 2026. Allowing four kick returns of 40 yards or longer in the same game is unacceptable.

2 BOLD PREDICTIONS

PREDICTION 1. Bucs Will Lose Next Week In Los Angeles

The Bucs will lose next week against the Rams on Sunday Night Football in Los Angeles. Just go into the game expecting a Tampa Bay loss and you won’t be nearly as disappointed, Pewter People. That’s the best advice I can give you.

Rams head coach Sean McVay – Photo by: USA Today

The Rams beat the Seahawks 21-19, intercepting Sam Darnold four times in the victory, which propelled them to 8-2 on the year and a temporary lead in the NFC West division as a result. It feels like the Bucs are going to lose their third straight game and drop to 6-5 on the season. Offensive mastermind Sean McVay usually gets the best of Todd Bowles and his defense, and I’m expecting more of the same. Especially with how poorly Tampa Bay’s defense is playing right now.

That means the Bucs will lose three straight games during a stretch for the third year in a row under Bowles. The good news is that even with another loss the team won’t be below .500. But it means that Tampa Bay’s next home game against Arizona in Week 13 is a must-win.

PREDICTION 2. Tampa Bay Won’t Lose Its Lead In The NFC South

I’m predicting the Bucs will lose versus the Rams in L.A. next week, but I’m also predicting a loss for the 6-5 Panthers, too. Carolina plays at San Francisco next week, and the 49ers trounced Arizona, 41-22. The Panthers moved to just a half a game back from the Bucs in the NFC South thanks to an overtime win at Atlanta, 30-27.

Bucs HC Todd Bowles and Panthers HC Dave Canales – Photo by: USA Today

So if both the Bucs and the Panthers lose next week, Tampa Bay will still have half a game lead in the division. And then the week after that, the Panthers have to play the red hot Rams at home before their bye week while the Bucs host the Cardinals. A Tampa Bay win and a Carolina loss would increase the Bucs’ lead over the Panthers back to one and a half games.

If Tampa Bay can handle business and beat 2-8 New Orleans and 3-7 Atlanta at home to win three in a row, the Bucs should be no worse than 9-5 heading into Carolina to play the Panthers in Week 16. The two teams end the season in Tampa Bay against each other in Week 18.