Bucs' Answers Are 'In the Locker Room' Amid Recent Skid

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have to find a way to right the ship with two tough games coming up before the bye.

Oct 27, 2024; Tampa, Florida, USA; Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield (6) throws a pass in the second half against the Atlanta Falcons at Raymond James Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jonathan Dyer-Imagn Images / Jonathan Dyer-Imagn Images

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are 4-4 heading into their next two games — a brutal stretch that includes the last two teams to play in the Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers. The Bucs were a team largely praised in the media after a bilstering 3-1 start, but much like last year when the team started with that same record, it could find itself with a losing record very, very quickly.

Tampa Bay's offense is firing, but it now lacks its two biggest playmakers in wideouts Mike Evans and Chris Godwin and quarterback Baker Mayfield has thrown seven interceptions in three weeks. Nothing seems to be going right on the defensive side of the ball, as the Bucs are a bottom-five defense in numerous metrics and have given up 27 or more points in its last four games.

Things look grim in Tampa Bay. But for head coach Todd Bowles, it isn't time to panic — it's time to identify what's wrong and figuring out a way to fix it as fast as possible.

“I said we’ve got to fix our problems," Bowles said. "The problems aren't in the locker room, but the
answers are in the locker room. From coaches to players, we’ve got to stay together,
we’ve got to fix us and we’ve got to get moving.”

READ MORE: Crazy Stat Shows Just How Bad Buccaneers Defense Has Been

Quarterback Baker Mayfield echoed the sentiment. Last year, the team got out to a 3-1 start before eventually falling to 4-7. The Bucs eventually climbed out of that hole to 9-8 and ended up winning a playoff game, and Mayfield wants the players who were there for that last year to remember that.

“Come together as a group," Mayfield said. "The guys that were here last year understand what happened this mid-season point and it’s – do the little things right. That’s how we got out of it and so, this group that we have right now, you just have to do your job."

Tight end Cade Otton was one of those players. And while things are looking grim, he said that the important thing was to take each game as they come and the rest will sort itself out afterward.

“We just have to go one game at a time – it’s obviously not what you are looking for, to lose two games in the division, but we still have everything in front of us," Otton said. "Like I said, we’ve just got to go one at a time, do everything we can to win next week and then go from there.”

Otton also mentioned that there's still plenty of time left to play football. And even with two heavyweight bouts on the horizon for Tampa Bay, Mayfield agrees with him — despite losing tiebreakers and no longer controlling their own destiny, the Buccaneers still have quire a bit of football left to play in a league where anything can happen.

"[The] season is not over," Mayfield said. "We’re not even halfway done.”

Stick with BucsGameday for more coverage of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers throughout the 2024 season.

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