The Tampa Bay Buccaneers avenged a January 2024 playoff loss to the Detroit Lions in Week 2 and knew they had a Week 4 matchup versus a fellow postseason contender in the Philadelphia Eagles (2-1) looming ahead.
Thus, perhaps it shouldn't have been so shocking that Tampa Bay looked somewhat flat throughout Sunday's 26-7 home loss to what was previously a winless Denver Broncos side.
Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield suggested after the defeat that the hosts weren't fully ready to face a Denver club that was desperate for a victory.
"You have to prepare like you're playing in a playoff game every week or else this can happen," Mayfield said about the blowout, as shared by Scott Smith of the Buccaneers' website. "We got our a---- kicked, physicality-wise, execution-wise, all over the board for us. It's a good lesson for our team, for the young guys who haven't seen it before, for what you need to be prepared for, how detailed we need to be. For it to happen this early on, I'm going to take the positives from it and take this one on the chin. There's nothing else to do besides that, and go from there."
Tampa Bay trailed Denver 17-0 in the game's second quarter and went into halftime down 20-7. In total, Mayfield completed 25-of-33 passes with a touchdown and an interception against the Broncos. He was held to 163 yards through the air, and he was sacked a whopping seven times.
Buccaneers insider Ira Kaufman of the JoeBucsFan website noted that Tampa Bay head coach Todd Bowles "warned his players against complacency all week" leading up to the Denver contest. Mayfield hinted that Bowles' messages didn't get through to others inside the locker room for whatever reason.
"All the credit in the world to Denver for coming in here – I think we'll watch this tape and you can probably tell on the tape how much more they wanted it than us," Mayfield acknowledged. "Our offense, we didn't start fast in the first quarter and we didn't start fast in the third quarter. That's the story of the game. …From the first quarter, it just felt flat. We'll learn our lesson and go from there."
Tampa Bay needs to learn that lesson quickly, as Philadelphia players likely feel they could and maybe even should enter this coming Sunday's game at Raymond James Stadium holding a perfect 3-0 record. As of Monday morning, DraftKings Sportsbook listed the 2-1 Buccaneers as 2.5-point underdogs against the Eagles for the rematch of a postseason clash that Tampa Bay won 32-9 this past January.
Like the Bucs back on Sept. 15, certain members of the Eagles will have revenge on their minds when the final Sunday of September arrives.
