After back-to-back losses out of their bye week dropped them to 6-4, the Bucs head into their Week 12 trip out west in dire straits. Tampa Bay’s lead in the NFC South is down to a half-game, its pursuit of the NFC’s No. 1 seed is just about dead and its next game – a Sunday night primetime game against the 8-2 Los Angeles Rams – threatens to make it four straight seasons with a losing streak of at least three games.

That doesn’t even take into account the ongoing injury crisis that continues to impact the Bucs, as they could once again be without up to four starters on offense and three on defense depending on how the final injury report plays out on Friday.

But if you’re looking for silver linings, there’s one based on hope with a sprinkle of reality and there’s another that is straight-up reality. On the one hand, this is the NFL and as cliche as the “any given Sunday” phrase is, it’s true. Just two weeks ago, the Dolphins dominated the Bills. We’re not that far removed from the Panthers upsetting the Packers, the Steelers upsetting the Colts and the Texans upsetting the 49ers.

It’s not like the Bucs beating the Rams would be the most out-of-nowhere, hard-to-believe result the league has seen this year or even in the past few weeks, and there’s zero reason to believe those in the Tampa Bay locker room are resigned to this game being chalked up as a loss.

Bucs QB Baker Mayfield – Photo by: USA Today

The other, more concrete reality that can serve as a silver lining is that after this Sunday night contest against a top Super Bowl favorite, the schedule lightens up for Todd Bowles’ team. Up next is a three-game homestand in Tampa against 3-7 Arizona, 2-8 New Orleans and 3-7 Atlanta. And even after that, the closing three-game stretch features two crucial games against 6-5 Carolina with a trip to play 4-7 Miami mixed in.

With that all said, let’s dive further into what might decide this matchup, as well as some key players to watch in this NFC showdown at SoFi Stadium on Sunday Night Football:

What Might Decide This Bucs-Rams Matchup?

This is turning into the game preview version of a broken record, but the Bucs need Baker Mayfield to be better. He really struggled in Weeks 7 and 8 against Detroit and New Orleans, played a little better against New England in Week 10 and was even a bit better than that last week against Buffalo. The big positive against the Bills was that we saw the mobility aspect of his game resurface, as he picked up key first downs with his legs, something he did so well early in the season.

But it’s still true that far too often, Mayfield is creating his own pressure, making wrong or risky reads and missing throws and open receivers. Tampa Bay can’t expect to win this game if all of that continues on Sunday night. The offense needs Mayfield to be the guy he was in the Week 5 win over Seattle and Week 6 win over San Francisco – or at least close to that. Week 11 in Orchard Park was a step forward after a frustrating few weeks, and now Week 12 needs to be the next step for Mayfield to get hot and carry that into the season’s stretch run.

A positive over the last couple of weeks – despite the losses – has been the improvement from Tampa Bay’s run game. Sean Tucker averaged 5.9 yards per carry in Week 11 against the Patriots’ top-ranked run defense and became the first running back to break 50 yards against them this season. He followed that with his second career 100-yard rushing game last week in a game that also saw him score three total touchdowns. The Rams have the league’s 11th-best run defense, so it’s not quite the bottom-three unit that Tucker and the Buccaneer offensive line saw last week. But continued success on the ground would be huge as Tampa Bay looks to earn an upset win in primetime.

Bucs WR Emeka Egbuka – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

It’s been a fascinating rookie season for Emeka Egbuka, hasn’t it? He burst onto the scene quickly with two touchdowns in a Week 1 win and hasn’t looked back, even as he’s had to take on WR1 duties with the injuries to Mike Evans and Chris Godwin Jr. He leads all rookie receivers in receiving yards, is only 283 yards away from a 1,000-yard season, ranks second among rookies with six receiving touchdowns and is the current betting favorite to win Offensive Rookie of the Year honors.

The one hangup to this point has been Egbuka’s catch rate, which feels like it’s been more a Mayfield problem than an Egbuka problem. Still, his 52.9% catch rate (45 catches on 85 targets) ranks eighth-worst in the NFL. He often finds himself open, but whether it’s a late throw or an inaccurate one, there have been times when he and his quarterback haven’t been able to connect. That has to change on Sunday and down the stretch, as the Bucs need a productive Egbuka to lead the way in the passing game until they can get Evans and/or Godwin back.

Defensively, there’s no secret about what the problem is. The Bucs just cannot stop allowing explosive plays. It was a problem earlier in the season, but in the last two weeks, it has reached threat level midnight. After a 72-yard touchdown and rushing touchdowns of 55 and 69 yards guided the Patriots to a win over the Bucs in Week 10, the Bills had touchdowns of 43 and 52 yards against Todd Bowles‘ defense in Week 11. And considering the talent on Sean McVay‘s offense, Tampa Bay will absolutely be tested on Sunday night. It goes without saying that if this defense can’t stop the explosives, there’s no chance of a win at SoFi Stadium.

Outside of the explosive plays, the Bucs’ pass rush has been a problem these last two weeks. The defense had six quarterback hits and just one sack on Drake Maye in Week 10, then had only one hit and zero sacks on Josh Allen last week. Matthew Stafford certainly doesn’t have the same level of mobility as those two, and the pass rush needs to take advantage of that. Yaya Diaby and Vita Vea need to come alive in this one, and Bowles may look to bring some heavy blitzes. However, he’ll need to pick his spots as Stafford has thrown the majority of his 27 touchdowns this season against blitzes and has long been extremely effective against the blitz.

Rams QB Matthew Stafford and Bucs DT Vita Vea – Photo by: USA Today

The one thing Tampa Bay has continued to do defensively despite its recent struggles is take the ball away. After Tykee Smith had an interception in the lost to the Patriots, both Jacob Parrish and SirVocea Dennis had interceptions last week. So, as much as the defense needs to shore things up in terms of limiting explosive plays and getting after the quarterback, the takeaways need to continue. Of course, that’s a tall task against Stafford, who has just two interceptions this season. If this defense can somehow find a way to double that total or force some fumbles, that’ll be a key ingredient in an upset.

As far as the Rams go, Stafford has to be salivating at the thought of playing this defense right now. The veteran quarterback has already had some big games against Bowles’ Bucs defenses in the past, with a 366-yard, two-touchdown performance in Los Angeles’ playoff win in Tampa three years ago and a 343-yard, four-touchdown day against that same defense a few months earlier. Bowles and the Bucs got the better of him during the 2022 season, but that was a banged-up version of this offense and the 2025 version of Stafford and this McVay offense has been deadly.

Stafford has thrown for 27 touchdowns to just two interceptions through 10 games, and the Rams are averaging north of 27 points per game. They’ve scored 30+ points in three of the five wins during their current winning streak, and with the Buccaneer defense struggling the way it is – plus Tampa Bay’s horrific kick coverage unit promising to give Stafford and Co. short fields to work with – that could become 30+ points in four of the wins on six-game winning streak.

Rams WRs Puka Nacua and Davante Adams – Photo by: USA Today

Stafford has been magnificent this season, and he has to be looking forward to this matchup. But the same can be said of the Rams’ electric wide receiver duo of Puka Nacua and Davante Adams, who will have the benefit of lining up against a struggling Bucs secondary. Zyon McCollum hasn’t lived up to his contract extension this season and can be beaten, but there’s also the fact that it looks like Tampa Bay’s best cornerback this season, Jamel Dean, will miss this game and rookie Benjamin Morrison will step in and start. That’s a scary thought considering how good this duo is and how much teams have been picking on the 2025 second-round pick in recent weeks.

The one question mark about the Rams offense heading into this matchup is the run game. Will Kyren Williams and the Los Angeles’ rushing attack be a factor at all? Williams does have 750 rushing yards and six touchdowns this season, but he only has one 100-yard rushing game to his name and the offense as a whole is only 18th in rushing, going for 114 yards per game. Tampa Bay is still a top-10 run defense, and if it can shut down Williams, McVay’s offense could become one-dimensional. The problem, though, is that the “one dimension” in question is still elite.

As good as the Rams are offensively, they also have one of the league’s best defenses. They’re only allowing 17.2 points per game, ranking second in the league in that category. Mayfield and the Buccaneer offense could challenge that average and make this a game, but only if Los Angeles can’t find a way to affect the quarterback. This defense has plenty of guys who can, as 12 different players have recorded sacks this season. Byron Young leads the way with nine, but Jared Verse is always scary, too. Tampa Bay’s tackle duo is one of the league’s best, but even they’ll have their work cut out for them this week.

Rams EDGE Jared Verse – Photo by: USA Today

Los Angeles has been better against the run than it has been against the pass, ranking 11th in run defense and 21st in pass defense. If Chris Shula‘s defense can shut down Tucker and the Buccaneer run game early, it could create the kind of game that Josh Grizzard, Mayfield and the Tampa Bay offense probably don’t want to get into. The Bucs offense needs balance, but if the Rams can force them into a whole lot of passing situations, it’ll be a long night.

And finally, takeaways are the name of the game for the Rams defense as well. Los Angeles intercepted Sam Darnold four times last week, and while Mayfield only threw his third interception of the season last week, this feels like a spot where that number could climb if he’s under pressure and forced into questionable reads and throws. Emmanuel Forbes Jr., Kam Curl, Kamren Kinchens and Cobie Durant are all tied for the team lead with two interceptions each and will be lurking again on Sunday.

Key Players To Watch

Emeka Egbuka is Baker Mayfield‘s WR1 right now, and if the Bucs are going to pull off an upset against the Rams, the rookie will need a game more like the one he had against the Patriots than the one he had against the Bills. His fourth 100-yard game of the season would do a whole lot for this Tampa Bay offense, especially if he’s able to stretch the field and make the big plays he made so often earlier this season against the likes of Atlanta, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle and New England.

Bucs CB Benjamin Morrison – Photo by: Cliff Welch P/R

The Bucs need better play out of Benjamin Morrison, especially considering how much they’ll miss Jamel Dean. It’s been a rough go lately for the 2025 second-round pick out of Notre Dame, but he’s capable of snapping out of the slump he’s in. As Pewter Report’s Josh Queipo wrote this week, everything that made Morrison a second-rounder is still there, and until these last two games, he was playing some solid ball. He missed training camp and the preseason, so there are going to be hiccups. But there’s no better time than Sunday for him to bounce back… and maybe even record his first career interception.

Someone who will be looking to make life difficult for Morrison and the Buccaneer secondary as a whole is Puka Nacua. The former BYU star has been on a tear since entering the league in 2023. He was a breakout rookie with 105 catches for 1,486 yards and six touchdowns in 2023, then he caught 79 passes for 990 yards and three touchdowns despite being limited to 11 games last year. And in nine games this year, he has caught 73 of his 87 targets (83.9%, which is second-best in the NFL) for 850 yards and four scores. Like Egbuka, he is looking for his fourth 100-yard game of the season. And it very well could come on Sunday night.

Rams WR Puka Nacua – Photo by: USA Today

Byron Young, another 2023 Rams draft pick, is on the cusp of his first double-digit sack season. After an eight-sack debut season in 2023 and 7.5 sacks last year, he has nine through 10 games this year. He can make life difficult for Mayfield and the Bucs offense in this game on Sunday night, especially with his ability to move around and find mismatches on the offensive line. And considering he is on a three-game streak without a sack and that 10th one has been ever-elusive, he’ll be especially fired up to get after it and reach double-digits with the Rams’ all-time leading sacker, Aaron Donald, in the house as the franchise honors his legacy.