EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — It didn’t matter that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had lost four straight heading into Sunday’s game against the New York Giants at MetLife Stadium, with their playoff hopes now clinging to literally every game from here on out.
If the Bucs (5-6) were going to get back into the win column after a much-needed bye to gain any sort of ground on the Atlanta Falcons (6-5) in the NFC South, it was going to be with style and some changes.
Result: Quarterback Baker Mayfield and Co. delivered with their fair share of theatrics in the 30-7 victory.
The Bucs have the easiest schedule remaining, according to ESPN’s Football Power Index, and the Carolina Panthers (3-8) are next up Sunday (4:05 p.m. ET, Fox).
“We’re hoping [the win over the Giants] builds confidence,” said Mayfield, who engineered four touchdown drives. “We have belief that we’re still sitting and controlling our own destiny. But it’s not just going to happen. So, we have to take it one week at a time. And you find the recipe for success within your work week — the focus and how we came out and started fast. You try to emulate that week after week and continue to build it.”
When Mayfield took the ball on second-and-10 and saw that his best option was to keep it and try to run the ball in for a touchdown, he hurdled his way past Giants cornerback Cor’Dale Flott into the end zone, before playfully mimicking quarterback Tommy DeVito‘s touchdown celebration in which he said after, “New York fans love Tommy here. I’ll give them something they like.”
Cornerback Jamel Dean joked after the game, “He going viral huh?”
“We got a quarterback that does it all,” Dean said. “It gets us excited because we see that we’ve got a different type of quarterback. We’ve got a quarterback that’s gonna lay it all on the line.”
In the fourth quarter, Mayfield raced downfield to deliver a block on a 56-yard run by running back Bucky Irving. Not even a quick trip to the blue injury tent for a stinger (he said, “It’s good”) could dull the excitement Sunday.
“He just invigorates the entire team,” cornerback Zyon McCollum said.
Irving beamed, “I love Baker, man. He’s a guy that wants to win football games. He’s competitive. Them the type of guys you want around you.”
Mayfield completed passes to 11 different receiving targets, tying a franchise record that Tom Brady set in 2020, even in a game when every inclination would be to get it into the hands of the franchise’s all-time leading scorer, wide receiver Mike Evans, who had been out for the last three games.
“When Mike was hurt it got [Mayfield] to trust a lot of the other guys,” coach Todd Bowles said. “So now with Mike back, he can spread it around easier without having to think about and look at who’s there and everybody understands what they’re doing, so everybody is in sync.”
But it wasn’t just Mayfield. The Bucs’ league-worst rushing attack from one year ago (88.8 yards per game) put up 156 rushing yards, and Tampa’s 128.1 rush yards per game this season ranks 10th.
Some changes paid off during the bye week that resulted in four rushing touchdowns by four different players Sunday. They gave the elusive Irving the lion’s share of touches as both a ball carrier and a pass catcher, and he wound up with 151 yards from scrimmage, with 48 rushing yards over expected, according Next Gen Stats.
Then they put arguably their most powerful, downhill runner Sean Tucker at the goal line despite him being their least experienced rusher, and they didn’t wait until the fourth quarter to use him. They even trotted out defensive tackle Vita Vea as a blocker, resulting in an opening drive fourth-down conversion and a touchdown.
“Bucky made some unbelievable plays,” Mayfield said. “Sean obviously played well, but then Rachaad [White’s] screen in man coverage — being able to make a guy miss and get down there in the red zone — that’s a really good play. So, all three of those guys did some special things today. So, we’re going to continue to lean on them.”
And then on defense, with almost a fully healthy squad — minus starting nickelback Tykee Smith, who has been dealing with a knee injury the last three weeks — Bowles was finally able to have both outside starting cornerbacks for the first time since Week 6. Dean suffered a hamstring injury that landed him on injured reserve, while McCollum bounced back quickly from a hamstring injury he suffered in Week 10 before the bye week.
“I didn’t even know I was gonna play,” McCollum said. “This is the quickest I came back from a hamstring injury in my life. … It felt like the band got back together.”
The Bucs claimed Mike Edwards, a third-round draft pick in 2019 who won a Super Bowl with the team in 2020, off the waiver wire during the bye week. The hope was that he could help patrol the middle of the field as an extra defensive back, which has been a vulnerable spot for the Bucs all season.
He came in on dime packages on third-down situations, which the Bucs hadn’t been able to show all season because of injuries. Edwards’ presence also allowed Bowles to blitz defensive backs — two plays of which Edwards was on the field for that resulted in sacks. Edwards would then step into Jordan Whitehead‘s role when he left the game with a pectoral injury.
“It all starts with Mike Edwards,” Bowles said. “Mike allows us to do certain things. He allows Antoine [Winfield Jr.] to be Antoine and Jordan to be Jordan. He allowed the backers to free up some things for us and I guess the D-line to tail off when you know you got a safety valve back then I can see a lot of things. So it really helped us and I know it doesn’t look like it helped us because he was in the back, but he really helped us up front and let those guys go.”
Sunday marked the first time since Week 3 and just the fourth time this season that the Bucs did not give up a passing touchdown. The Bucs also had four sacks on the day — from Vea, Calijah Kancey, Anthony Nelson and Winfield, with inside linebacker Lavonte David forcing a fumble that Kancey recovered. Vea and Kancey, the Bucs’ defensive tackles, now have 11 combined sacks on the season.
Mayfield said it was the type of performance they’d been looking for in all three phases, although they did have an issue with fumbles, which Bowles noted.
“The guys focused on the little things,” Bowles said. “For the most part we executed on both sides of the football. Still like to have finished the game a little better, but they came back mentally tougher, and they came back ready to play.”
