Bucs HC Todd Bowles – Photo by: Cliff Welch/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 continued their second half slide and are now 7-9 on the season after an embarrassing 20-17 loss at Miami to a Dolphins team led by rookie QB Quinn Ewers, who was making his second NFL start. Miami led by 10 points for most of the game and beat Tampa Bay 3-0 in the turnover margin thanks to two interceptions and a fumble by quarterback Baker Mayfield. Even though the Bucs are guaranteed a losing record this season, the fact that the Panthers also lost on Sunday means that Tampa Bay’s Week 18 game versus Carolina will decide the NFC South championship and the final playoff spot in the NFC.

2 BIG STATEMENTS

STATEMENT 1. Bucs Are Out Of Answers And Out Of Time

Bucs head coach Todd Bowles hears the questions.

What’s wrong with the Bucs?

Why can’t this team finish games?

Why can’t the Bucs beat teams with losing records?

Why does Tampa Bay lack a killer instinct?

Why do the Bucs make so many critical mistakes at critical junctures?

Bucs HC Todd Bowles – Photo by: IMAGN Images – Nathan Ray Seebeck

It’s clear that Bowles doesn’t have the answers. Week after week, loss after loss, press conference after press conference, it’s obvious that Bowles doesn’t know how to fix the multitude of problems the team has.

Despite being healthier, the Bucs have lost more games down the stretch than they did when they were more injured during the 6-2 start. Despite the return of star receivers Mike Evans and Jalen McMillan and running back Bucky Irving, the Bucs are scoring fewer points. All of a sudden, Tampa Bay’s defense cannot record a takeaway, nor can it consistently stop the run.

And it’s not as easy as just saying, “the coaches have to coach it better and the players have to play it better” as Bowles often does.

“We do it right in practice,” Bowles said. “Can’t explain it in the game, but we definitely, as coaches and as players have to look at ourselves in the mirror. We just need to work on the Bucs. Whatever Carolina does, they do. We got to work on the Bucs and just stay working on the Bucs. We have to figure that part out.

If Bowles did have the answers, things would be different. His team wouldn’t have squandered a 6-2 start before the bye week to finish 1-7 and sit at 7-9 with one game left.

Tampa Bay can either finish 7-10 with a potential Top 10 NFL Draft pick or finish 8-9 and NFC South champions depending on the outcome of the team’s rematch against Carolina at Raymond James Stadium in Week 18.

Whether the Bucs get the hat and t-shirt as winners of the crappiest division in football or not, Tampa Bay is guaranteed to have a losing record this year. And winning the NFC South and making the playoffs with an 8-9 record seems hollow, fraudulent and embarrassing.

“We have to get ourselves together before we worry about anybody else – Carolina or anybody else,” Bowles said. “We’re just shooting ourselves in the foot at every chance. That starts with me. I have to coach them better. They have to play it better. We have to figure out how we can stop making our mistakes to move on. If we play and do the things we did today next week we won’t be going anywhere.”

In order to have a chance to beat Carolina – let alone any chance of beating a better team in the playoffs – the Bucs must win the turnover battle and get better play from quarterback Baker Mayfield, who threw a pair of touchdown passes, but also a pair of costly interceptions and lost a fumble.

“That’s tough,” Bowles said. “It’s very unfortunate. He’s one of the leaders on our team. He’s the captain. He played good ball the first half of the season. We’ve got to take better care of the ball in the second half.

Dolphins S Jason Marshall- Photo by: IMAGN Images – Nathan Ray Seebeck

“Unfortunately, we weren’t making any plays. Obviously turning the ball over three times doesn’t help, either. That’s 3-0 in the turnover battle and they’re gonna win that game every time. … We didn’t do enough  and those turnovers crushed us, obviously. We still have a chance next week. We’ve been blessed with a chance.”

The Bucs have repeatedly blown chances to not only win the division, but finish with at least 10 wins as Bowles’ team did a year ago because the head coach doesn’t have the answers to fix the problems. Instead, this season has clearly been a step back – a big-time regression. Truthfully, Tampa Bay doesn’t deserve to be in the playoffs with how it’s finished this season.

And unless the Bucs beat the Panthers next week and somehow make an unexpectedly deep, deep run into the playoffs, the team needs to find a new head coach that can come up with those answers in 2026.

STATEMENT 2. Rookies, Backup QBs Certainly Don’t Fear Todd Bowles’ Defense – They Thrive Against It

In 2o22, it was the combination of Kenny Pickett and Mitch Trubisky in Pittsburgh, P.J. Walker in Carolina, Jacoby Brissett in Cleveland, Brock Purdy in San Francisco and Desmond Ridder in Atlanta.

In 2023, it was C.J. Stroud in Houston and Gardner Minshew in Indianapolis.

In 2024, it was Denver’s Bo Nix and Cooper Rush in Dallas.

This year it’s been New Orleans’ Tyler Shough, Atlanta’s Kirk Cousins and Quinn Ewers in Miami.

Dolphins QB Quinn Ewers – Photo by: IMAGN Images – Sam Navarro

Another year, another couple of losses by Todd Bowles’ Buccaneers to either rookie quarterbacks or backup quarterbacks – or in the case of Shough and Ewers – backup quarterbacks, who are also rookies.

It’s one thing to watch an established quarterback like Detroit’s Jared Goff, Buffalo’s Josh Allen or Los Angeles’ Matthew Stafford shred Bowles’ defense. But to see Bowles’ defense make rookie quarterbacks look like seasoned veterans and to make backup QBs look like Pro Bowl-caliber starters is just ridiculous.

Haven’t we seen enough? This keeps happening year after year after year after year under Bowles – and it needs to stop.

If Bowles wasn’t the defensive play-caller what would we be saying right? We’d all be saying, “Fire the defensive coordinator!”

The Bucs absolutely need a new play-caller on defense, a new, more modern defensive scheme and some better assistant coaches next year. And if Bowles doesn’t want to concede play-calling duties or fire some on his defensive staff than Tampa Bay needs a new head coach, too.

Isn’t the goal to dial up blitzes and pressure young quarterbacks into mistakes and sacks? Isn’t the goal to disguise coverages so that rookie QBs are tricked into throwing interceptions?

Bucs HC Todd Bowles – Photo by: IMAGN Images – Nathan Ray Seebeck

Instead, the pass rush is largely non-existent, and it’s Bowles’ own defensive backs who are getting fooled in coverage and busting plays each week.

Ewers threw first two NFL touchdown passes in the Dolphins’ 20-17 win over the Bucs in Miami on Sunday, and he didn’t turn the ball over was sacked just twice. The seventh-round pick out of Texas out-dueled Baker Mayfield, who had a pair of interceptions and a fourth quarter fumble. Ewers looked poised and comfortable almost every time he dropped back to pass.

For as complex as Bowles’ defenses are supposed to be, rookie quarterbacks and backup QBs seem to figure it out pretty easily. Had Tampa Bay gotten wins over New Orleans, Atlanta and Miami, the Bucs would have already clinched in the NFC South division and be sitting at 10 wins right now.

2 PROBING QUESTIONS

QUESTION 1. Did Ian Rapoport Really Say Todd Bowles Wouldn’t Get Fired After The Season?

Yes. NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport is of the belief that Bucs head coach Todd Bowles is safe to return for the 2026 season despite the team’s stunning fall from a 6-2 start. Of course that was before Tampa Bay’s 20-17 loss at Miami. Now the Bucs are guaranteed to have a losing record with either a 7-10 or 8-9 finish.

Rapoport didn’t say that team sources told him that Bowles was safe, either. He could very well be injecting his opinion into this topic, and he cited two reasons for his claim. The first was that Bowles was given a three-year contract extension through the 2028 season. In the past, the Glazers have given coaches five-year contracts with the final year being a team option – so really a four-year deal with a one-year option.

Is the final year of Bowles’ three-year extension a team option as well? If so, it’s really just a two-year extension, and that wouldn’t dissuade ownership from making a head coaching change if it wanted to.

Second, Rapoport mentions that Bowles has won three straight division titles. But he didn’t note that during that span that the NFC South has notoriously been the worst division in football. And that Bowles’ first division title came with an 8-9 record, followed by a 9-8 record in 2023. In four seasons as Tampa Bay’s head coach, Bowles is just 34-33 and he has a 1-3 record in the postseason.

It’s clear that the Glazers have a strong affection for Bowles, who is truly a great man and helped the team win Super Bowl LV with a masterful gameplan against Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City. But the fact that his defense has regressed in each of the last three seasons, coupled with a second half free fall this year record-wise, and replacing Bowles simply has to be on the table and open for discussion after the season is over.

QUESTION 2. What Has Happened To Baker Mayfield?

Who knows? “Better Mayfield” has left the building, only to be replaced by “Bad Baker.” During Tampa Bay’s 6-2 start, quarterback Baker Mayfield had thrown 13 touchdown passes and only two interceptions. That’s nearly a 4:1 TD-to-INT ratio.

Since the bye week Tampa Bay is just 1-7 and Mayfield has thrown 12 touchdowns and eight interceptions. Too many turnovers and not enough plays from Mayfield.

Bucs QB Baker Mayfield – Photo by: IMAGN Images – Nathan Ray Seebeck

Tampa Bay is 7-1 in games in which Mayfield hasn’t thrown an interception and is 0-8 in games in which has has thrown a pick. The Bucs have gone from a team that was once plus-9 in the turnover margin before the bye week to just plus-2 entering Week 18.

Yes, Mayfield has dealt with some injuries this year that have certainly affected him. But with his two interceptions on Sunday in Miami, the first was simply not putting enough air under the ball on a throw to Jalen McMillan, while the second was just a poor decision.

It doesn’t help that Mayfield’s has thrown interceptions in the fourth quarter of each of the last four Tampa Bay losses, either.

2 BOLD PREDICTIONS

PREDICTION 1. Bucs Will Lose At Home To The Panthers

The Panthers beat the Bucs, 23-20, two weeks ago in Carolina to take the lead in the NFC South. On Sunday at Raymond James Stadium in dramatic fashion, Dave Canales and Co. will pull off an upset that no one saw coming prior to the start of the season. The Panthers will beat the Bucs to finish 9-8 and win the NFC South to host a Wild Card playoff game. It will be a stunning fall from grace for Todd Bowles and the Bucs, who had the division lead from Week 1 until losing it in Carolina in Week 16.

Bucs HC Todd Bowles and Panthers HC Dave Canales – Photo by: IMAGN Images – Bob Donnan

The Bucs will lose because they’ve seemed to master the art of doing it – having lost seven of the last eight games since the bye week, including four straight with Sunday’s defeat at the hands of the Dolphins. And why wouldn’t the Bucs lose at home? It’s not like Tampa Bay has had a homefield advantage this year. The team is just 3-4 at Raymond James Stadium in 2025, and has already lost to division rivals New Orleans and Atlanta at home.

For those Tampa Bay fans that want to see a head coaching change, a 7-10 record should do it. And picking closer to the Top 10 rather than in position No. 19, which is where the team would pick with a win that secures the NFC South championship, should also increase the chances that the Bucs add better talent for the 2026 campaign.

PREDICTION 2. Emeka Egbuka Falls Short Of 1,000 Yards This Season

With Mike Evans missing half the year with a hamstring injury and a broken clavicle it became clear by midseason that his streak of 1,000-yard seasons would come to an end. But there was some hope that rookie Emeka Egbuka, the team’s first-round pick, would start his NFL career with a 1,000-yard season of his own. Egbuka had amassed 677 yards on 40 catches with six touchdowns through the first nine games of the 2025 campaign, including three 100-yard performances.

Bucs WR Emeka Egbuka – Photo by IMAGN Images – Jim Dedmon

But down the stretch Egbuka’s production has faded, and with it his chance at hitting 1,000 receiving yards. Entering the 2025 season finale, Egbuka has 62 catches for 930 yards and needs 70 yards to reach 1,000 yards on the year.

Over the last seven games he’s totaled just 253 yards on 22 receptions. The Ohio State product was averaging 75.2 yards per game through Week 10, but has now seen that average fall to 36.1 yards per game over the last seven weeks. Egbuka had just one catch for 40 yards at Carolina last week and only three catches for 20 yards in Miami. With the Bucs focused on winning to make the playoffs, the team won’t be as concerned with the rookie hitting the 1,000-yard mark.