Vikings
Tampa Bay is 0-2 for the first time since 2014, and the easy explanation would be that a defense missing its best pass rusher just got carved up twice. That is not what happened. Ja'Marr Chase caught 2 passes for 12 yards in Week 1, as BucsWorld's own film review already covered. Cincinnati still scored 33 points. Cleveland scored 23 more a week later without a single receiver getting loose. The problems with Todd Bowles' defense through two games are real, but not the ones a glance at the scoreboard suggests.
Key facts
- Tampa Bay has allowed 33 points to Cincinnati and 23 to Cleveland to start 0-2 for the first time since 2014.
- The Buccaneers have three total sacks through two games: Josiah Trotter's in Week 1, and first career sacks for David Walker and Keionte Scott in Week 2.
- First-round pick Rueben Bain Jr. has one tackle in two games, and Todd Bowles said on September 21 that he does not think Bain is completely healthy.
- Cincinnati converted 8 of 14 third downs against Tampa Bay in Week 1, and Cleveland converted 5 of its 13 third downs in Week 2.
- Linebacker Alex Anzalone missed the tackle on Denzel Boston's 55-yard touchdown catch, while rookie Josiah Trotter has led the Buccaneers in tackles in both games.
The two games, side by side
Week 1 at Cincinnati | Week 2 vs Cleveland | |
|---|---|---|
Result | Lost 27-33 | Lost 19-23 |
Total yards allowed | 351 | 267 |
Third-down defense | 8 of 14 (57%) | 5 of 13 (38%) |
Sacks recorded | 1 (Trotter) | 2 (Walker, Scott) |
Two different games, two different failure modes. Cincinnati moved the ball efficiently and on schedule. Cleveland managed only 267 yards and converted barely a third of its third downs, yet still won on two big plays and a fourth-quarter drive the Buccaneers' offense could not answer in time, as BucsWorld's recap of that loss detailed.
Where the 33 points actually came from
Cincinnati's scoring in Week 1 traces almost entirely back to a Tampa Bay offense that could not hold onto the ball, not to Chase beating anybody deep. Baker Mayfield lost three fumbles, and one of them, scooped up by linebacker Demetrius Knight Jr. and returned 27 yards, was a Bengals touchdown by itself. The other two turnovers handed Joe Burrow a short field for a Mike Gesicki touchdown and a Chase Brown rushing score. Add in four made field goals from Evan McPherson, including a 58-yarder, and the math gets to 33 without Chase ever touching the ball more than four times.
That does not let the defense off entirely. Cincinnati still converted 8 of 14 third downs, a 57 percent clip that kept giving Burrow fresh downs, and the pass rush barely existed: Burrow was pressured on only 21.6 percent of his dropbacks, the lowest rate against any Week 1 starting quarterback, per Pro Football Focus data reported by The Pewter Plank. Tampa Bay's only sack all afternoon came from rookie linebacker Josiah Trotter on a blitz, not the four-man rush Bowles wants to build his scheme around.
A pass rush still waiting to show up
Through two games, Tampa Bay has three total sacks: Trotter's blitz sack in Week 1, and first career sacks for edge rusher David Walker and cornerback Keionte Scott in Week 2. Walker's came on a third-down rip move against Deshaun Watson, a notable moment for a player who missed his entire rookie season with a torn ACL. Scott's, from the cornerback spot, was the kind of pressure that is supposed to come from the front four more often than the secondary.
Three sacks in two games is not nothing, but it is a rate that will not scare an NFL offensive coordinator, and it is coming from a rotating cast rather than the players Tampa Bay expected to provide it.
Rueben Bain Jr., still not himself
The clearest disappointment has a name and a draft slot. Rueben Bain Jr., the 15th overall pick in April, finished Week 1 with one tackle and no pressures, then followed it with zero tackles and zero pressures against Cleveland, as BucsWorld's earlier look at his quiet debut already noted after the first game.
On September 21, Bowles gave the clearest public explanation yet. "I don't think he's completely healthy," he said, before adding that Bain is "good enough to play." Bain has been carrying an AC joint sprain in his shoulder since the offseason, an injury that never appeared on a Tampa Bay injury report, and Bain himself has maintained it is not affecting him. Two games of near invisibility from a first-round edge rusher, followed by his own head coach publicly doubting his health, is not a storyline that resolves itself by Sunday.
The linebacker room: one up, one under fire
Behind that quiet pass rush sits a linebacker duo pulling in opposite directions. Alex Anzalone, the free agent signing who was voted a defensive captain and wears the "green dot" that connects him to the coaching staff's play calls, has missed two tackles in each of the first two games, Pewter Report's mailbag reported, including the whiff that let Denzel Boston turn a short pass into a 55-yard touchdown against Cleveland. PFF numbers cited by Yahoo Sports rank Anzalone sixth among all NFL linebackers in missed-tackle rate through two weeks.
Asked directly whether Anzalone should be benched, Bowles defended him, saying that benching a player for mistakes would mean "everybody is on the bench." Meanwhile Josiah Trotter, the second-round rookie playing next to him, has led the Buccaneers in tackles in both games, 11 in Week 1 and 13 in Week 2, on top of his pick-six off Burrow in his very first NFL game. It is an unusual pairing: the captain under public scrutiny, the rookie quietly outproducing him.
Vea shaking off rust, Kancey rolling
Not every individual story is a problem. Calijah Kancey, back from the torn pectoral that cost him most of 2025, has drawn praise from Bowles through two games, while Vita Vea is the opposite case: Bowles said after Week 1 that Vea "played well athletically" but still needs his technique and hand placement back, as BucsWorld covered already. A 31-year-old nose tackle shaking off rust in his first two games on a new contract is a fixable, temporary problem, unlike the others on this list.
The scheme, explained
For readers newer to American football, Bowles built his career on disguised pressure: instead of always rushing the same four defensive linemen, he regularly sends five or more, called a blitz, using a linebacker, safety or cornerback the offense did not expect. The idea is to make the quarterback guess wrong before the snap about who is actually coming. It only works if the extra rushers win their matchups quickly and the defenders left behind in coverage can hold up alone for a beat longer than usual. When the blitz gets home it looks unstoppable; when it does not, the defense simply has fewer players in coverage and nothing to show for it. That is part of why a defense that blitzed heavily in 2025 too, as BucsWorld broke down in full, keeps generating pressure and sack totals well below the volume of extra rushers Bowles sends.
What is fixable, and what is not
Some of this is genuinely correctable in a week. Anzalone's missed tackles are a technique problem a 10-year veteran has fixed before. Vea's rust is a matter of reps, not decline. Bain playing through a shoulder issue that predates the season can improve once he is further removed from it, whenever that is.
Harder to explain away is the pass rush itself. Three sacks in two games and a Week 1 pressure rate of 21.6 percent, even counting one great debut sack from a rookie linebacker on a blitz, is not a formula that survives a full season, and it cannot be pinned on any single player's health. Minnesota visits Raymond James Stadium on September 27 with Kyler Murray back from the concussion that knocked him out of Week 1 and cost him Week 2, a mobile quarterback who punishes exactly the kind of pressure that arrives late or not at all. Tampa Bay's tackling should look better by then. Whether its pass rush does is the more honest test of whether this defense has a talent problem or just a slow start.
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