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Number 6 Baker Mayfield, of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Photo courtesy of @buccaneers instagram.<\/p>\nNumber 6 Baker Mayfield, of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Photo courtesy of @buccaneers instagram.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay, for the better part of NFL history, has been one of the lower notes in the NFL.\u00a0They play in the NFC South,\u00a0a division with low winning percentages. The highest regular-season\u00a0win-loss percentage\u00a0in the division belongs\u00a0to the New Orleans\u00a0Saints, at .463.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Each\u00a0team\u00a0in this division\u00a0is\u00a0notorious for\u00a0its\u00a0longstanding or varied poor performances.\u00a0The\u00a0Atlanta\u00a0Falcons\u00a0infamously\u00a0lost a Super Bowl to the New England Patriots\u00a0despite a 28-point\u00a0lead in the\u00a0fourth\u00a0quarter. The Panthers have made NFL history\u2014becoming\u00a0the first team to win their division twice with a losing record<\/a>\u00a0(7-8-1 in 2014 and 8-9 in 2025). The Saints did not have a winning\u00a0season from 1967 to 1986,\u00a0and they have\u00a0had eight\u00a0starting quarterbacks since Drew Brees retired in\u00a0March of 2021<\/a>, not including\u00a0rookie\u00a0quarterback\u00a0Tyler Shough.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n How do the Buccaneers fit into this quadrant? As of the end of the 2025 regular\u00a0season,\u00a0they have the worst win-loss percentage<\/a>\u00a0(.412).\u00a0<\/p>\n Things took a turn for them, though, when famous\u00a0quarterback\u00a0Tom Brady joined the Buccaneers and led them to the\u00a02021 Super Bowl<\/a>\u00a0title. Since then, the team has been\u00a0considered the best in the NFC South, with little\u00a0divisional competition.\u00a0<\/p>\n To bring it back to the present, the NFC South\u00a0participated\u00a0in a weird statistical event, in which\u00a0every team in the division finished the season with a negative point differential, meaning they gave up more points than they scored.\u00a0<\/p>\n In Week\u00a07\u00a0of\u00a0the\u00a0season,\u00a0the Buccaneers were 5-1 and atop the\u00a0NFL\u2019s power rankings<\/a>.\u00a0Positioned to dominate and win the division. However,\u00a0at\u00a0the end of the season, they were\u00a08-9 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2019, all\u00a0because they lost\u00a0the three-way tiebreaker to the Panthers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Let\u2019s\u00a0start at the beginning of the season\u00a0\u2013\u00a0they became the first team to win four games with game-winning scores in the final minute, 5-0 in games decided by 3 points or fewer by Week 13. Because of the fourth-quarter surges, Baker Mayfield was being called a legitimate MVP candidate by midseason.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n But magic vanishes\u2014that performance has rarely, if ever,\u00a0held up\u00a0for a season in professional sports. They suddenly started losing those games by the same margins\u2014three games in a row dropped by\u00a0one\u00a0and\u00a0three\u00a0points (twice) respectively.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In the critical\u00a0Week 15 game against the Falcons,\u00a0Mayfield threw a late interception<\/a>\u00a0and outright missed a deep pass that\u00a0would\u2019ve\u00a0iced the game, later admitting that the clutch plays had dried up. The offense had failed to score 13 points in\u00a0two\u00a0of their last\u00a0three\u00a0games, proving that they\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0just clutch out of\u00a0a bad performance\u00a0anymore.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite\u00a0Head\u00a0Coach Tom\u00a0Bowles being\u00a0a former safety\u00a0and praised as a defensive mastermind, the defense suffered\u00a0a staggering downfall. The Bucs\u00a0secondary\u00a0 finished\u00a0the\u00a0season\u00a0ranked dead last in\u00a0passing yards allowed, giving up 257 per game. Since\u00a0Week 9, the defense allowed 28.4 points per\u00a0game, bottom\u00a05 in the league.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n They started well, though. Over\u00a0the first\u00a0three\u00a0weeks, the defense was\u00a0third\u00a0in\u00a0efficiency but\u00a0had dropped to 29th\u00a0by the end of the season.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the end of the season<\/a>, their offense was around average (17th to 21st in major categories) while their defense was average except for the\u00a0passing (27th). When other teams were in the Red Zone, they allowed\u00a0their opponent to score\u00a0near 70% of the time,\u00a0<\/a>dead last in the league.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the craze of firings and resignations\u2014Mike Tomlin of the Steelers, John Harbaugh of the Ravens and (now Giants),\u00a0Kevin Stefanski\u00a0of the Browns\u00a0(now Falcons),\u00a0Kevin\u00a0Patullo\u00a0of the Eagles,\u00a0Sean McDermott\u00a0of the Bills\u2014Bowles\u00a0remains, much to the surprise of Tampa fans.\u00a0<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image-65.png\")
Number 25 Jacob Parrish of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Photo courtesy of @buccaneers Instagram.<\/p>\n