The Bucs are a sinking ship. But unlike in Pirates of the Caribbean, where ships always had a funny way of rising back up to the surface, this one appears to be going directly to the bottom of the ocean. In this case, to the bottom of the NFL.

In fact, you can already say this team is there. We’re only three games into the 2026 season, yes, but if the season ended on Sunday and we were drafting tomorrow, this Bucs team would be picking first overall.

Sure, four other teams share the honor of being winless at this point in the season, but Tampa Bay’s strength of schedule has them sitting in the 32 spot of the entire league.

Now, let me be clear: I don’t anticipate the Bucs having the No. 1 overall pick come next April. They will eventually find some wins on the schedule and finish ahead of the likes of the Dolphins, Jets, and perhaps a handful of other teams. But right now, that’s the company they reside in, and they have nobody to blame but themselves.

Tampa Bay is 0-3 and the latest defeat came Sunday at the hands of the Minnesota Vikings. The Bucs were put away, 23-16, in a game that can only be characterized as Tampa Bay missing opportunities and routinely shooting themselves in the foot, at least on offense.

The Bucs Were Offensive On Offense vs. Vikings

You see, Todd Bowles’ defense actually came to play, holding the Vikings to just 230 yards of total offense, generating a turnover, and allowing Minnesota’s offense to convert just two-of-15 third down attempts, while allowing just one touchdown. The Vikings had a 21.7% offensive success rate Sunday, the lowest in 71 games during the Kevin O’Connell era, according to The Athletic’s Alec Lewis.

This was actually the second-worst offensive performance by success rate from any team this season, per The Ringer’s Sheil Kapadia. The issue Sunday was that the Bucs’ offense was even worse; they delivered the worst offensive performance by success rate from any team this season.

Bucs OLB David Walker – Photo by: IMAGN Images via Reuters Connect

The Bucs went 2-of-17 on third down, surrendered six sacks, and only found the end zone once through four quarters, and that came near the end of the first 15 minutes of play when quarterback Baker Mayfield found wide receiver Ted Hurst III for a 40-yard touchdown, his first in the NFL. Other than that brief moment of joy for Bucs fans, this was a dreadful display of offensive football in a league where offense drives the show more often than not.

The Bucs committed eight penalties for 81 yards – most of those coming on offense – and offensive coordinator Zac Robinson had little to no answer for Brian Flores’ blitz-heavy approach, despite incorporating more 12 personnel into the offense. Chase McLaughlin and Riley Dixon aside, special teams doesn’t get out of this one blame-free. Minnesota’s first touchdown was an 86-yard punt return score from Myles Price.

“It was a little bit of everything,” Bowles said after the game. “I gotta see what the penalty situation looks like. We gotta see whether it was play-calling, quarterback, offensive line, it’s everybody included in that, and we gotta do better on third down.”

Bucs QB Baker Mayfield – Photo by: IMAGN Images via Reuters Connect

Tampa Bay had plenty of opportunities and failed to deliver. How about midway through the third quarter when Vikings quarterback Kyler Murray had a ball swatted down at the line of scrimmage and it landed in the arms of defensive tackle A’Shawn Robinson for an interception. Tampa Bay, down 17-10 at the time, suddenly had the ball just 22 yards away from the end zone. They needed seven and instead only got three as the offense gained just two yards in three plays.

Or how about the next three drives for Minnesota’s offense, in which Tampa Bay’s defense forced as many three-and-outs. What did the Bucs offense do with those opportunities? The answer was another three points, which came on a drive which started with a 21-yard completion to Emeka Egbuka before penalties and sacks stalled them out.

And who could forget during that stretch the moment where Mayfield hit wide receiver Chris Godwin Jr. downfield for an 85-yard touchdown to give Tampa Bay its first lead of the game. That, however, was before everyone inside Raymond James Stadium realized there was laundry on the field. The penalty was on the Bucs, a holding call on Luke Goedeke to wipe out a play that could have changed the outcome.

You only get so many opportunities throughout a 60-minute game to strike and when they come, you have to deliver. Tampa Bay didn’t, and that’s been a common theme throughout the last 12 games dating back to last season. The Bucs are now 2-10 since Week 10 of last season. Sure, some of the names on the team are different, as well as several on the coaching staff, but the results haven’t changed a bit.

The Immediate Future Looks Rough For Tampa Bay

To make matters worse, Mayfield suffered a dislocated thumb late in the fourth quarter. Mayfield is set to miss a minimum of three games and that means undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels will be tasked with guiding the offensive operation in the right direction amid an 0-3 start.

It would appear a strong possibility that with the Green Bay Packers, Dallas Cowboys, and Pittsburgh Steelers next up on the schedule, this thing is going to get worse. Todd Bowles looks and sounds like a coach void of answers on how to truly fix the problems stopping this team from prosperity.

This isn’t a team in a rut or going through a bad stretch, this is who they are.

But hey, thanks to being members of the lowly NFC South, they are, in fact, only one game out of first place.

“Funny thing, we’re 0-3 and we’re a game out of first place,” Bowles said. “We have to get our stuff together, we gotta reach down and do more. To a coach, to a person, to a player, we gotta do more and figure out what we can do more and how we can be better and come back tomorrow and get ready to go.”