Pewter Report’s PR Roundtable
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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 is the Bucs’ Ceiling For Wins This Season?

Scott Reynolds: Tampa Bay Tops Out At 10 Wins Under Todd Bowles

Do I think this Tampa Bay team is capable of winning more than 10 games? With this talented roster? Yes. But talent doesn’t always win games. Sometimes it comes down to the right gameplan, good in-game coaching, the right adjustments and clock management. Coaching matters. If it didn’t then NFL teams would just have players and no coaches.

Todd Bowles has been the head coach of the Bucs since 2022 after Bruce Arians abruptly retired and turned the team over to him after free agency and before the NFL Draft. Over the past four years Bowles has won three division championships, but has topped out at 10 wins. In his first year, the Bucs went 8-9 in Tom Brady’s final season in the NFL. Then Tampa Bay showed improvement and finished atop the NFC South again with a 9-8 record.

Bucs head coach Todd Bowles – Photo by: USA Today

A 10-7 record followed in 2024, followed by a disappointing 8-9 season last year that saw Tampa Bay surrender the division crown to Carolina, which also finished 8-9, but won the NFC South due to a tiebreaker. The Bucs reside in the league’s worst division and have for four years now. Only one team has recorded double-digit wins since 2022 and that was the 2024 Buccaneers with 10 victories.

In eight years as a head coach, including four seasons in New York with the Jets, Bowles has topped out at 10 wins twice. He first did that in 2015, his first season as the Jets head coach, with a 10-6 record. In just two seasons as a head coach in Seattle, Mike Macdonald won a Super Bowl with a 14-3 record last year. In his first season as an NFL head coach, Jacksonville’s Liam Coen inherited a 4-13 Jaguars team and went 13-4 en route to winning the AFC South in 2025.

Each year we’ve seen the Bucs lose at least two games the team had no business losing due to poor coaching. Last year it was losing at home to a 3-10 Saints team, 24-20, and then blowing a 14-point lead with 10 minutes left against a Falcons team that was 5-9, 29-28 on Thursday Night Football. Great teams don’t lose to lesser teams, and that’s why the Buccaneers haven’t been great under Bowles. They find a way to blow a game or two that they have no business losing. As a result, I feel like Tampa Bay’s ceiling is 10 wins as long as Bowles as the head coach – until he proves otherwise.

Matt Matera: Bucs Can Win 12 Games If They Get The Right Bounces

The Bucs appear to be a good team “on paper.” They have talent all across the roster, especially on the offensive side of the ball. If offensive coordinator Zac Robinson taps into what quarterback Baker Mayfield can do best along with having a great receiver room, plus having a healthy running backs and an offensive line, this team can score 30 points a game. Do that and Tampa Bay will be in each contest.

Bucs QB Baker Mayfield – Photo by: Cliff Welch P/R

Ideally, the ceiling is being reached with big help on the defensive side, too. It either means Todd Bowles is pushing the right buttons for the first time in a long time, or rookie Rueben Bain Jr. turns out to be a stud edge rusher. This requires a bounce back from the team’s cornerback room, or just committing to the best players starting, like Jacob Parrish. Get this pass rush going with Bain and Yaya Diaby and the Bucs should win more games.

It also matters who the Bucs play on the schedule. They should go 6-0 against the NFC South, but they won’t. For purposes of reaching 12 wins, let’s say they go 4-2 in the division. Tampa Bay doesn’t have as many “easier” games this year, but the Browns, Vikings and Steelers look more favorable. That’s seven wins with games against the Packers, Cowboys, Bears, Lions, Chargers and Ravens that I call “coin flip games” – meaning neither a win nor a loss would be surprising.

Would the Buccaneers come out on top in all of these games? No probably, not. And I won’t be predicting that they win 12. But there’s no question that the potential is there. It’s just a matter of the Bucs putting the finished product together as a team on the field – rather than just on paper.

Adam Slivon: I Still Believe This Bucs Team Has A 12-Win Ceiling

Before last season, the Pewter Report staff was hopeful in what the Bucs would accomplish. Three of us predicted Tampa Bay would go 11-6, while Josh Queipo and I picked the team to go 12-5. Coming off a 10-win year in 2024, the sky seemed to be the limit, and they started out 6-2 in 2025. It ended in abysmal fashion, but that does not mean the ceiling is capped for the heights they could reach.

Bucs QB Baker Mayfield and HC Todd Bowles – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

A lot of things would have to work out and for there to be unexpected breakout players. What separates good teams from great ones oftentimes is the ability to win close games. To that end, the team stayed competitive in just about every game last season. The Bucs lost six games by six or less points, and the only losses they suffered that were greater than a touchdown were to the Lions, Bills, and Rams.

Given all the talent that was added to improve the team’s weaknesses, even marginal upgrades could turn a few of those close losses into wins and help Tampa Bay get back to double-digit wins. The NFC South remains up for grabs, and sweeping or coming close would make headway at reaching that ceiling. The schedule outside of the division is more competitive, as they face the NFC North this year in addition to teams like the Chargers, Ravens, and Rams. It will not be easy to secure victories, and it will take both sides of the football stepping up.

The offense has a talented collection of weapons surrounding Baker Mayfield and one of the best offensive lines when healthy. There is a chance they get back to being a top five unit. It is no secret the defense has to improve and will determine how this team pans out. Reinforcements have been added at each level, from beefing up the defensive line, upgrading the outside pass rush, adding two starting-caliber linebackers, and getting younger secondary coaches to provide a spark.

One can talk themselves into things panning out, but it will take all the pieces proving they fit. If they do, the Bucs have a chance at recording a dozen wins and making serious noise in the NFC.

Bailey Adams: The Bucs’ Ceiling Could Be 11 Wins

We’re talking ceiling, right? As in what’s the best-case scenario for the 2026 Bucs? I think it’s 11 wins. You might raise an eyebrow and wonder how a team that hasn’t won more than 10 games since its 13-win 2021 campaign and just finished last season on a 2-7 stretch could pull that off. That’s fair. But there’s a path. 

On the one hand, we’ve talked a lot about the idea that the Bucs need their offense to return to its 2024 levels and that being the key to getting back to double-digit wins in 2026. But remember 2024? Tampa Bay still had that midseason lull, one that was full of injuries. 

Bucs OC Zac Robinson – Photo by: Matt Matera/PR

So, what if Zac Robinson gets the offense back to where his good friend, Liam Coen, had it in 2024? And what if that happens and 1.) the offense avoids that type of injury crisis it had back then or 2.) the Bucs’ improved depth helps prevent what that losing stretch? 

On the defense, Tampa Bay should have a better pass rush than it’s had in years. The ceiling for the unit’s inside linebackers is higher than what it’s been in recent years, too, and while the secondary has its question marks, it’s a group with a lot of potential. Maybe it can live up to that potential. 

All of that is best-case scenario type of stuff, and when I look at the schedule through that lens, I get to 11 wins as the ceiling. Ceiling for the first four games? I’d go 3-1. For the next four? Again, 3-1. Split the Bears and Lions games, go 2-2 against the Panthers, Chargers, Ravens and Rams. Take two of the other three games (Saints twice, Falcons away). That’s 11, and that feels like the potential high mark for this Bucs team. 

Josh Queipo: 11 Wins Seams Reasonable In Tampa Bay

With a beat-up offensive line, a cratering defense and a play-caller learning on the fly in offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard, the Bucs still managed eight wins in 2025. With an intact offensive line, a slightly more productive defense and a better offensive coordinator calling plays in Liam Coen, they put together 10 wins in 2024.

Now everything wasn’t rosy that season either. The midseason swoon still bit head coach Todd Bowles and the Krewe. And the receiving corps turned into Cade Otton and the Pips. But they still mustered double-digit wins.

Bucs HC Todd Bowles – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Do I think Zac Robinson is the second coming of Coen? No, I do not. But I do think he represents a middle ground between Coen and Josh Grizzard. Without Mike Evans the receiving corps is worse on paper than it was in 2024. But it’s also better than the four-game stretch the team was without Chris Godwin Jr. and Mike Evans due to more talented depth. If the offensive line can maintain better health than they did last year there are additional wins to be had.

And I genuinely believe this is the best collection of defensive talent Todd Bowles has had in 4-5 years. Those can all make up for the coordinator deficit from a year ago and give the team a slightly higher ceiling than the 75th percentile outcome I believe 2024 turned out to be. That team had a ceiling of 12-13 wins. This team slightly less with 11 wins, but still plenty good.