9/14 Monday Rant: Bucs Offense Disappoints All-Around Against Bengals in Week 1

ehinote · 2026-09-14T22:03:17Z

Welcome to Year 3 of Monday Rants, and we are starting with a bang. As most of you know, I lean hard on Todd Bowles' deficiencies as a defensive coordinator. A lot of that comes from years of coaching and recognizing how flawed his overall scheme can be. But Bowles is an easy target. This week's target is the supposedly revamped offense… the freshly paid Baker Mayfield, the new offensive coordinator Zac Robinson, and what we've been told is a top-five offensive line. Let's get into it.Baker OvercooksBaker Mayfield had a busy offseason making the media circuit, explaining why he deserves to be paid as a top-ten quarterback. And he got paid. Good for him, and genuinely good for the Buccaneers. There's no realistic hope of bringing in a better quarterback than Baker this year or next. The only scenario where that changes is if this season goes truly sideways and our draft position puts us in range to take a quarterback in what is shaping up to be a very quarterback-heavy draft class.Baker worked hard through the offseason and preseason. He learned Robinson's new offense, which is worth noting is Baker's eighth new offensive system in as many seasons. He came into Cincinnati looking healthy and sharp. And then 1:00 p.m. hit.Communication and headset issues plagued the first drive, with plays coming in late and the offense frantically snapping the ball just before delay of game penalties. It was a bad look for Baker, for Robinson, and for the offense as a whole. Through the chaos, the unit did manage some nice early runs and screens. But the one play that stays with me is the second offensive snap of the entire 2026 regular season. The play was schemed beautifully. Emeka Egbuka ran a go route against a corner who was sitting and had no help. Egbuka beat him by four or five yards. Clean. Wide open. And Baker underthrew him.That is a massive opportunity to open the season with a statement play, knock the defense back on its heels, and establish that the Buccaneers can threaten you vertically. Instead it fell incomplete. And here's the hard truth: Baker misses that throw too often. It is simply not his strength. But when a receiver is that open, when a corner is sitting that flat-footed, an NFL starting quarterback has to hit him. Tyler Shough hits that throw.From there, Baker did what Baker does best… fight, scramble, wrestle out of sacks, deliver short, quick passes that move the chains. That is genuinely his strength and it is what makes him so valuable to this offense. But that style of play carries a tax. See the first-quarter fumble that led directly to a Bengals defensive touchdown. See the second-quarter fumble going into the end zone after escaping pressure in the pocket. See the third-quarter fumble when he held the ball too long and got sacked from behind, losing his third fumble of the game. His career-high in a single game, by the way.Baker has to be a fighter because he doesn't consistently beat defenses over the top enough. He earns every yard the hard way. But Sunday in Cincinnati, that toughness cost this team the game. Three fumbles. You simply cannot overcome that.Robinson Shows Potential, But Not Enough for Week 1Zac Robinson came to Tampa this offseason as our new offensive coordinator following two years running the same system with the Atlanta Falcons. Even with that limited play-calling experience, it was more than we've gotten from the last several coordinators. He had an actual scheme. He knew how to use it. That already puts him ahead of where we've been.But Robinson can't control his players fumbling the ball away, and not everything was in sync with his new offensive unit Sunday. The communication issues may have stemmed from equipment problems, but every coordinator, especially on the road, knows that is a potential pitfall. The backup plan for those situations needs to be smoother than what we saw.The early deep shot to Egbuka was beautifully designed. It just didn't connect. And beyond that, deep shots were too few and far between for a team that found itself trailing for the majority of the afternoon. When you're down most of the game, you need to take some calculated shots downfield. Maybe the receivers weren't getting open. Maybe the line wasn't giving Baker enough time. But we need to be able to push the ball further down the field more consistently.The screen game looked relatively sharp, though it's genuinely difficult to spread a defense when you're spending most of the game working behind the line of scrimmage. A diet of runs, screens, and five-to-ten-yard passes doesn't create the vertical threat that opens up space underneath. You need those deep shots to make the short game work. Without them, the defense simply sits down and takes away what you're giving them.The one genuine bright spot in the offensive game plan was the early running game. Robinson used motion and the quick passing game effectively in the first quarter to open up running lanes, and it worked. Bucky Irvin...

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Egbuka

"“I think we did some good things on Sunday,” said Egbuka, who was targeted the most on with presnap motion (30 percent). “I think we were driving the ball well when we weren’t turning it over, but obviously that has to be our number one point of emphasis going forward.”

Posted : Sep. 17, 2026 11:39 am

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9/14 Monday Rant: Bucs Offense Disappoints All-Around Against Bengals in Week 1

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