BUCS BONUS: How can the Bucs right the ship and stop the losing?

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The Tampa Bay Buccaneers fell below .500 after an overtime heartbreaker to the defending NFL champion Chiefs on Monday Night Football.

In what feels like a repeat of their 2023 season, the Bucs have dropped four of their last five — including three in a row — after starting the season 3-1.

Despite boasting a top-five scoring offense with the league’s leading touchdown passer in Baker Mayfield, the team has been unable to overcome a defense that ranks 30th in total defense and 28th in scoring.

Opposing teams have scored 30 points or more in all four of their recent losses, putting enormous pressure on first-year offensive play caller Liam Cohen and Mayfield to make magic despite the loss of the team’s two best offensive weapons in injured stars Mike Evans and Chris Godwin.

Part of the problem for the defense is a lack of pressure from their edge pass rushers. After leading the team in sacks last year, second-year pro Yaya Diaby has only two through 10 weeks.

While the team is eighth in the league in sacks, over half of those takedowns are coming from the interior, with defensive tackle Vita Vea leading the team at five.

The team’s edge rushers — including Diaby, Joe Tryon-Shoyinka, Anthony Nelson, and Chris Braswell — have accounted for just five and a half of the team’s 25 sacks, or 22 percent.

Possibly contributing to the lack of pressure from the team’s edge rushers is the pass defense, which is allowing over 255 passing yards per game to opposing quarterbacks and has given up 18 touchdowns through the air this season, both bottom five marks in the NFL.

Teams have found success targeting the middle of the field against Tampa Bay, as evident on Monday Night when Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce connected 14 times for 100 yards.

Following the Monday night heartbreaker, Head Coach Todd Bowles remained steadfast that the team’s problems were correctable.

“We did a lot of good things, but not enough to win the ballgame,” Bowles said. “We have to do the little things to win the ballgames.”

On Tuesday, Bowles sang a slightly different tune than he had following previous losses.

After dropping the team’s second game to division rival Atlanta, Bowles said communication errors on defense were the root cause of the problem. After losing to the Chiefs, Bowles said mistakes weren’t the issue.

“We had less mistakes in this game. This one, they beat us. We didn’t really beat ourselves,” the coach said.

“It came down to the end, but we’re not going to lose too Florida many of those if we keep playing like this,” Bowles added. “As long as we’re playing this hard and commit less mistakes, we feel good about our chances week in and week out regardless of who we play.”

The Bucs will host the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.

If the Bucs want to head into their bye week at 5-5 with any sort of momentum to carry them through the back half of the season, they will need to cut out the mistakes and hope their head coach is right about their chances.