The Tampa Bay Buccaneers fell to the Cleveland Browns, 23-19 at Raymond James Stadium and fall to 0-2 on the season. The Buccaneers’ offense was not able to consistently get into a rhythm throughout the matchup. The Bucs totaled 313 yards of offense and Baker Mayfield completed 21 of 24 attempts for 182 yards, a touchdown and an interception. Tez Johnson led the Bucs in receiving with 49 yards and Emeka Egbuka scored on a five-yard touchdown pass. David Walker and A’Shawn Robinson recorded sacks on Deshaun Watson.<\/p>\n
The Browns won the coin toss and elected to receive to start the game. The Bucs’ defense forced a quick three-and-out, with Yaya Diaby dropping KC Concepcion Jr. in the backfield for a loss of six on second down. Tampa Bay’s opening 53-yard drive offensive drive, including a 12-yard gain by Chris Godwin Jr. off a jet sweep, culminated in a Chase McLaughlin 59-yard field goal.<\/p>\n
Midway through the first, the Browns evened the score off an Andre Szmyt 50-yard field goal following a false start penalty. Despite a 38-yard gain by Bucky Irving on the Bucs’ ensuing drive that brought Tampa Bay to the 33-yard line, the Bucs had to settle for a McLaughlin 45-yard field goal to make it 6-3. On the aforementioned play, Irving quickly bounced to the outside then made a decisive cut back inside to avoid a defender for an additional gain. The Bucs’ defense then forced a quick three-and-out, with Benjamin Morrison and Tykee Smith tracking Quinshon Judkins in the backfield, tackling him for a loss of four on second down.<\/p>\n
On the next drive, Baker Mayfield scrambled on third-and-10 for a first down, but was intercepted on the next play by Myles Harden at the Cleveland 47 and he ran it back 25 yards to the Tampa Bay 28-yard line. To begin the second quarter, David Walker dropped Deshaun Watson for a loss of eight on third down to force a Szmyt field goal, evening the score at six. The Browns next drive ended in a punt, with Bucs’ safety Keionte Scott firing off the edge on a blitz for a seven-yard sack on Watson. Following a Mayfield sack on third down that resulted in a punt, the Bucs’ defense held on fourth down which led to a turnover on downs. Just before the half, McLaughlin kicked a 31-yarder to give the Bucs a 9-6 lead. In the first half, the Bucs totaled 126 yards and completed just three-of-eight attempts on third down. The defense held the Browns to 0-6 on third down through two quarters.<\/p>\n
The Bucs were able to reach the end zone early in the third quarter, capping off a 65-yard, seven-play drive with a five-yard touchdown pass to Emeka Egbuka. On the drive, a 24-yard gain over the middle of the field by Chris Godwin Jr., a 14-yard gain for Irving around the left edge and a third-down scramble by Mayfield led to the score and 16-6 lead for the home team.<\/p>\n
Late in the third, Szmyt hit a 34-yard field goal following an incompletion to Denzel Boston on third down. To tie the score at 16 with just over a minute to go in the third quarter, Boston evaded a Bucs’ defender and accelerated for a 55-yard touchdown.<\/p>\n
In the fourth quarter, the Bucs were able to move down the field courtesy of a 49-yard gain by Tez Johnson on a post route. However, the Bucs were unable to cash in with a touchdown and settled for a McLaughlin 31-yard field goal.\u00a0\u00a0The Browns answered with a 12-play, 68-yard scoring drive that ended in a 17-yard touchdown pass to Blake Whiteheart, giving the Browns a 23-19 lead.<\/p>\n
A lightning delay led to a two-hour intermission and after the game resumed at 6:10 p.m., the Bucs went with a run-heavy script amidst the downpour. Ted Hurst III caught a pass for a gain of six and a subsequent holding penalty pushed the Bucs back 10 yards. Mayfield then threw a fade ball to Hurst, who could not hang on for the catch in the end zone. An incompletion to Egbuka sealed the team’s fate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Buccaneers fell to the Cleveland Browns, 23-19 at Raymond James Stadium and fall to 0-2…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405774,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[161104,589,11925,135,137,136,158954],"class_list":["post-405773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-cleveland-browns-at-tampa-bay-buccaneers-2026-reg-2","tag-featured","tag-rapid-reaction","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-week-2-2026-browns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}