The Tampa Bay Buccaneers won the NFC South and got to host a home playoff game as the No. 3 seed in the NFL, but their playoff stay didn’t last long.
Tampa Bay got bounced from that game 23-20 to quarterback Jayden Daniels and the Washington Commanders, exiting the playoffs a round earlier than they did in 2023. The Bucs beat the Commanders in Week 1 of the regular season, but Washington took the win and would eventually make it to the NFC Championship before losing to the Philadelphia Eagles.
Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield recently appeared on the Pardon My Take podcast, and he was asked by the hosts about a particular moment in the game. The Bucs kicked a field goal with 4:41 to go in the game to tie it up 20-20, and the Commanders got the ball and never gave it back before kicking the game-winning field goal to advance. Mayfield was asked if he knew the Commanders wouldn’t give that ball back after the field goal, and replied in the affirmative.
“Yeah, at that point you could kinda feel the momentum out of it,” Mayfield said. “We just, offensively, didn’t play good enough. It was one of those days. We were averaging damn near 30 points per game and we didn’t even come close to that — just too many mistakes.”
Despite that, the Buccaneers still won the NFC South for the fourth year in a row. But while Mayfield acknowledged that goals like that are nice to achieve, they ultimately don’t mean much year-to-year if you don’t win a championship in the NFL.
“I mean, no,” Mayfield said. “The goal is always Super Bowl or nothing. You check off your boxes on the way to getting to the Super Bowl — division, playoffs. But after that, if you don’t do anything in the playoffs, it really doesn’t matter.”
The Bucs have another opportunity this year to go even farther with an offense that is returning in its entirety and a defense that should be revamped with new players after the 2025 NFL Draft. The first box to check, the division title, will come into play early — the Bucs will face off against the Atlanta Falcons in Week 1 on the road.
