They had me in the first half not gonna lie. But the Tampa Bay Buccaneers managed to pull away in the second off of a truly dominant performance from Baker Mayfield. Him and Chris Godwin couldn’t be stopped.
But, there were definitely a few warts to this game. The defense could not stop Jayden Daniels running to save their lives. They kept leaving rushing lanes wide open and Todd Bowles absolutely refused to spy him. He wasn’t doing anything through the air, but was tearing up the Bucs on the ground. Daniels had over 50 yards rushing in the first half alone.
The Bucs in general were incredibly sloppy with offense and defense. There were a lot of penalties. Some were questionable, but others were incredibly bad. They had two false starts on the same series to push them back from 2nd and short. And for as good as Liam Coen did, he ran the ball far too much on first down in the first half. I would argue that was a big reason Rachaad White and Bucky Irivng did not do good until late. However, he started letting the Bucs air it out more in the second.
Coen absolutely had the pass game humming. While the run game wasn’t amazing through a combination of predictable play sequencing and bad IOL play, Baker had 289 yards and four TDs: one to Chris Godwin, one to Jalen McMillan, and two to Mike Evans. As alluded to earlier, nearly every single third down was converted by Baker heaving it to Godwin. Sometimes he was really well covered and placed it in the one spot only Godwin could get it. Just a monster performance.
But speaking of monsters, Mike Evans did indeed feast. He had two TDs, the first of which was one of the best of his career. Just fought through the contact (arguably DPI, but whatever). He did have nearly as many catches as Godwin, but he made the most of his chances.
I feel really good about this team. The defense wasn’t as good as I thought it would be, but they did lose a lot of people before and during the game (we literally ran out of outside CBs). But with the offense the team showcased, it will be very difficult for other teams to keep up with them. If that IOL just holds up and the run game can get into gear, we have a really good football team. oh, and we should probably sign some more corners.
