Three weeks in, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are already drowning in self-inflicted wounds, having racked up a staggering 22 penalties for 182 yards. You read that right: nearly two full football fields in penalties in just three games, and it’s absolutely killing their season as they sit at a frustrating 0-3 after three close losses. These aren’t just minor hiccups; these are self-sabotaging mistakes that are becoming impossible to overlook.
Holding Calls Are Crushing Drives (and Dreams)
Man, where do you even start with this mess? Offensive holding has been the absolute worst offender, costing them 77 yards on eight accepted calls. Remember that game against Minnesota? Cody Mauch got flagged for holding after Bucky Irving punched it down to the Vikings’ three-yard line. And then, Graham Barton gets pinged for holding on the *very next play*! Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, turning a first-and-goal into a first-and-27. Instead of potentially scoring seven points, they settled for three. That’s just brutal. But wait, it gets worse. Baker Mayfield hits Chris Godwin Jr. for what should have been an 85-yard touchdown on third-and-29. A highlight reel play! Poof, gone. Luke Goedeke, holding. Payne Durham even wiped a Mayfield scramble that would’ve moved the chains. These aren’t just minor hiccups; these are drive-killing, touchdown-erasing, momentum-sucking mistakes.
More Than Just Holding: A Team-Wide Discipline Breakdown
And it’s not just holding, either. The discipline problem runs deeper. Four false starts and three unnecessary roughness penalties in three games? That combo tells you everything you need to know about what’s going on down there. False starts kill your rhythm before the play even starts, putting you behind the sticks. Unnecessary roughness? That’s just handing out free yardage to your opponent after the whistle! They finished one game with eight penalties for 81 yards and lost by just seven points. You think those penalty yards played a part in that narrow loss? These are details that are separating them from wins.
The Head Coach Has to Fix This
This absolutely falls back on Todd Bowles. When you see these boneheaded mistakes week after week, across multiple players, it stops being individual errors and becomes a full-blown team problem. They’ve been yapping for years about needing to communicate better, execute better, and play smarter. But here we are, same old song and dance, with the same issues continuing to show up. The Bucs are losing their first three games by a combined 17 points, and they’ve given up 182 yards in penalties. They’ve got enough problems already without creating more themselves.
It’s all about those “small details separating wins from losses,” right? Well, right now, the Bucs are getting way too many of those details wrong. If they don’t clean up this penalty problem, this 0-3 start is going to spiral, and fast. You can’t win in this league giving away nearly two football fields in free yardage every three weeks. Time to get it together.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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