Pewter Report’s Scott Reynolds answers your questions from the @PewterReport X account this week in the Bucs Mailbag. Submit your question to SR each week via X using the hashtag #PRMailbag. Here are the Bucs questions we chose to answer for this week’s edition.

QUESTION: It’s Baker Mayfield’s ninth year in league and he still hasn’t figured out how to not turn the ball over. Can’t believe the Bucs signed him to a contract extension that pays him $55 million a year.

ANSWER: Baker Mayfield the passer actually had a great day in Cincinnati in Tampa Bay’s 33-27 loss. When the ball left his right hand Mayfield actually made some really good things happen. He completed 23-of-28 passes (82.1% completion percentage) for 216 yards. Mayfield even ran the ball five times for 30 yards and a touchdown.

But his three fumbles – two of which occurred when he hung on to the ball too long – were devastating and led to Tampa Bay being minus-3 in the turnover margin. Bengals linebacker Demetrius Knight Jr. scooped-and-scored on the first one, which was key in a game decided by six points. On Mayfield’s two fumbles behind the line of scrimmage he held on to the ball for nearly five seconds, which is inexcusable. He needs to listen to the clock inside his head and throw the ball away and live to fight another play.

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

On his other fumble, which was his second of the game, he cost the Bucs at least three points, as he had the ball stripped away inside the Bengals 5-yard line and it was recovered by Cincinnati for a touchback. I don’t think his contract had anything to do with how he played on Sunday in the 2026 season opener. Had Mayfield signed that extension last week or had he been forced to play out his contract year I think he has the same performance.

Mayfield does have a fumbling problem and leads the league in fumbles with 35 dating back to his arrival in Tampa Bay in 2023. That’s been a concern over the years and has to be a concern moving forward. Now keep in mind that those 35 fumbles do not represent turnovers. Those are the times he fumbled – not necessarily how many were not recovered by Mayfield or a Bucs teammate. And every fumble that occurs from a center-quarterback exchange is always counted as a QB fumble.

Yet it’s still been a problem for Tampa Bay’s $55 million-per-year man. Out of those 35 fumbles, 20 have resulted in a turnover, including all three on Sunday at Cincinnati. In his first season with the Bucs, Mayfield had eight fumbles and lost three. In 2024, which was a Pro Bowl season for Mayfield, he fumbled 13 times but only lost five. Last year he fumbled 11 times, but lost seven.

What happened on Sunday against the Bengals cannot happen again, especially for a veteran in his ninth year. Mayfield worked to reduce his interceptions from 16 in 2024 to just 11 last year. But now he must work on the other big turnover area – fumbles – if he wants to guide his team back to the playoffs.

QUESTION: Are we concerned now with Rueben Bain Jr.’s arm length? Dude was eaten alive by a bad Bengals O-line.

ANSWER: I don’t think it’s so much about arm length as it was about a lack of overall effectiveness from Rueben Bain Jr. He was absolutely a non-factor in his Bucs debut. Bain had just one tackle in the run game, and as a pass rusher he was essentially invisible, generating zero pressures, zero QB hits, and of course, zero sacks.

Tampa Bay’s first-round pick seemed hesitant at times at Cincinnati, and not the pass rusher full of fury on every down that we saw in his six snaps in the preseason game against the Chiefs. In hindsight, Bain probably should have played more than just those six snaps versus Kansas City because he had plenty of “welcome to the NFL” moments on Sunday at Cincinnati where he was playing more reactively rather than proactively.

Of course going up against Bengals right tackle Amarius Mims, a 2024-first-rounder who has improved mightily since his rookie season, was a tall task – literally and figuratively. The 6-foot-8, 350-pound Mims essentially erased Bain on Sunday, largely due to his arm length, which measures over 36 inches, and his wingspan of nearly 87 inches. There’s no doubt that Bain’s short arm length, which is less than 31 inches, didn’t help.

Sunday’s matchup between Mims and Bain reminded me of former Rams right tackle Rob Havenstein, who is 6-foot-8, 322 pounds, going up against former Bucs undersized outside linebacker Shaq Barrett, who is 6-foot-1, 250 pounds. Barrett’s arms weren’t much longer than Bain’s at just 32 inches, and he got engulfed plenty by the bigger Havenstein, especially in the 2021 NFC Divisional playoff loss when he recorded just three tackles and didn’t get near Rams QB Matthew Stafford that day.

Going up against massive veteran offensive tackles like Mims can be a tough matchup for undersized rookie pass rushers. Bain learned a lot of lessons in Cincy in his Bucs debut and will only get better because of it. I do want to see him be more in attack mode moving forward, as I thought he caught too many blocks at times against the Bengals.

QUESTION: Did the Bengals improve their O-line or were the pieces we brought in just really not good at producing any pressure without the blitz? 

ANSWER: In Week 1 you have to hand it to Cincinnati’s offensive line. That unit certainly looked better in the 2026 debut than at any time last year in pass protection. It was also alarming how bad and ineffective Tampa Bay’s pass rush upfront was collectively and individually was. Outside of Baker Mayfield’s three fumbles, the poor pass rush performance by the Bucs’ revamped defensive front was easily the most disappointing aspect in Sunday’s loss to the Bengals.

NFL statistics showed that Joe Burrow was only hit six times with newcomer Al-Quadin Muhammad the only defender registering two hits. Both Muhammad and Yaya Diaby, who did not register a QB hit or a sack, finished with one tackle. Rookie outside linebacker Rueben Bain Jr. had just one tackle and did not record a pressure, QB hit or sack.

It was tough sledding for the defensive tackles too, as A’Shawn Robinson had five tackles and one QB hit, yet neither Calijah Kancey nor Vita Vea had much impact at all. Neither had a tackle and each generated just one QB hit. Rakeem Nunez-Roches did not get near the quarterback and had one tackle. The much ballyhooed debut from Tampa Bay’s retooled defensive front was a spectacular dud, as Burrow was the least-pressured quarterback in Week 1, according to Pro Football Focus.

Given the roster turnover along the defensive line and at outside linebacker, the money spent and the draft picks invested, Tampa Bay clearly lost the battle in the trenches to Cincinnati. If the Bucs are going to have a bounce-back year and get back to the playoffs, this unit needs to show some progress in a hurry and live up to its potential. If Tampa Bay can’t generate pressure on opposing quarterbacks again this year this team is going nowhere fast.

QUESTION: The amount of passing plays that were called behind the line of scrimmage is concerning. Is this going to be a weekly staple or was it more to do with the in helmet communication being an issue?

ANSWER: Unfortunately it’s going to be a weekly staple of Zac Robinson’s offense. After a year under previous offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard where too many passes went downfield compared to Liam Coen’s offense in 2024, the pendulum has swung back too far under Robinson. What we saw on Sunday was a continuation of what we saw in Bucs training camp this summer.

After Baker Mayfield’s completion percentage plummeted from a franchise-record 71.4% in 2024 under Coen to 63.2% last year under Grizzard, the emphasis was to get his completion percentage back up. Mayfield was too inaccurate on passes of more than 20 yards and that led to too many third-and-long situations, three-and-outs and stalled drives in 2025.

However, Robinson is boosting Mayfield’s completion percentage with his offensive scheme, but at times this offense is just spinning its tires without going anywhere. Mayfield did complete 81.2% of his passes (23-of-28) for 216 yards at Cincinnati, but the Bucs offense lacked explosiveness and put too much pressure on the players to make a defender miss or break a tackle to really pick up a significant amount of yardage.

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

For example, Chris Godwin Jr. finished with four catches for 40 yards. Yet one of those receptions was a 30-yard catch-and-run. That means he gained just 10 yards on three other receptions. Twelve of Mayfield’s 23 completions were either at or behind the line of scrimmage. That’s over half. Only 10 of Mayfield’s 28 passes went for 10 yards or more – with just six completions – at Cincinnati, and that’s got to change moving forward for this offense to be more explosive and effective.