Heading into Week 4 of the NFL season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ campaign had been perfect — at least in terms of results. Baker Mayfield and his team arrived at the matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles with a 3-0 record, although the level of play shown by Todd Bowles’ squad still left some doubts.
What did those previous wins have in common before Sunday’s matchup? All of them came in close games, with the Bucs coming from behind late to secure the victory. Unfortunately for Tampa Bay, they weren’t as lucky against the reigning league champions.
For this reason, Bowles knows that, although he was satisfied with certain stretches of the game, they can’t expect to get the same results every time if they don’t perform at 100% throughout the entire game.
“The fight, we’re going to have that every week,” the HC said, via the team’s website. “But you can’t fight and get behind the eight ball against good teams and expect to win. We’re always going to have fight; we just have to clean up mistakes now. It’s getting to that point where we have to cut them down.”
The Bucs fell 31-25 at Raymond James Stadium, suffering their first loss of the NFL season. However, they remain atop the NFC South with a positive 3-1 record.
Mayfield’s self-criticism after the loss
A pivotal play in the game saw Mayfield targeting Chris Godwin, but the ball ended up in the hands of linebacker Jihaad Campbell — a moment that undoubtedly could have changed the course of the game. The quarterback, far from shying away from the incident, took full responsibility for the mistake.
“Obviously, situationally, in the red zone, you’ve got to be careful with the ball,” said Mayfield. “It just kind of slipped out of my hand; I don’t know if it got tipped or what but [we need] extra precaution down there. We were driving down, it was a one-score game. We fight. I’ve talked about it.
“The standard is fight back, we won’t stop fighting until the game’s over, and that’s the positive take out of it. But the negative is directly related to [the slow start]. We talked about starting fast and we did the opposite today. We’ve got to fix that. You can’t expect to beat teams of that caliber when you start slow like that.”
Time to shuffle the deck and start over
With the main goal of quickly putting the loss to the Eagles behind them, these are the upcoming matchups that lie ahead for Mayfield and company:
- @ Seattle Seahawks, October 5
- vs San Francisco 49ers, October 12
- @ Detroit Lions, October 20
- @ New Orleans Saints, October 26
- Bye Week