{"id":352128,"date":"2026-01-04T19:08:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T19:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/352128\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T19:08:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T19:08:07","slug":"buccaneers-baker-mayfield-makes-week-18-feelings-clear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/352128\/","title":{"rendered":"Buccaneers’ Baker Mayfield makes Week 18 feelings clear"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers<\/a> still have life in the 2025 season, but for how long, we aren’t sure.<\/p>\n

With their 16-14 win over the Carolina Panthers<\/a>, the Buccaneers moved to 8-9 but didn’t clinch the division, and they will have to wait to see the outcome of the Atlanta Falcons<\/a> and New Orleans Saints<\/a> game.<\/p>\n

A Saints win will see the Buccaneers win the division and head to the playoffs, and a Falcons win will see the Panthers go to the postseason.<\/p>\n

But how does Baker Mayfield feel after beating the Panthers, yet still has to wait to see if his team is playoff-bound?<\/p>\n

“Yeah, that part’s disappointing, but we’re here,” Mayfield said<\/a>\u00a0post-game. “You can’t go back and change anything. And that was the focus this week is control today, and see where the chips fall. We did that. Team win, yeah, we’ll all be pulling from New Orleans.\u201d<\/p>\n

More:\u00a0Kirk Cousins injury update is good news for Buccaneers, bad news for Panthers<\/p>\n

Buccaneers all Saints fans in Week 18<\/p>\n

As Baker stated, to be in this position in Week 18 is disappointing, but that is part and parcel of being a team that, prior to Week 18, had lost seven of its last eight games.<\/p>\n

Now 8-9 and needing the Saints, who have shown some improvement over the past month, to beat the Falcons isn’t ideal, but that is where Tampa Bay is.<\/p>\n

A season that started so well (5-1) has come off the rails, and the Week 18 win over the Panthers might be too little, too late for the Buccaneers.<\/p>\n

Four quarters of football are left, and as hard as it is to watch, Tampa Bay needs its rival to help it get into the postseason.<\/p>\n

More NFL news:Dolphins predicted to cut star wide receiver in 2026\u00a0Cardinals predicted to replace Kyler Murray with 2026 rookie\u00a0Giants predicted to add elite weapon for Jaxson Dart\u00a0Russell Wilson posts cryptic message among bad season\u00a0Steelers predicted to replace Aaron Rodgers with college star\u00a0Pete Carroll predicted to be one-and-done with Raiders\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Buccaneers still have life in the 2025 season, but for how long, we aren’t sure.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-352128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}