The fun’s over. That one game the Bucs won last week is forgotten.
On Sunday afternoon, the Tampa Bay football Buccaneers took a gut-punch of a loss, falling in overtime to the Pittsburgh Steelers 26-19.
The biggest takeaway: undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels was a feel-good story, but his status as a backup should be restored (assuming Baker Mayfield is ready to go next week).
Daniels was uncomfortable for the entire second half, missing on a lot of easy throws and tossing two costly interceptions into the welcoming arms of Steeler defenders.
There’s a lot to unpack from this loss, so let’s start with some quick-hitting not-so-fun facts.
- The Bucs blew a 13-point lead in the 4th quarter, the largest regular season fourth quarter comeback by the Steelers in over two decades.
- Tampa Bay was outscored 23-6 over the second half and overtime.
- If you remove a 70-yard drive where the Bucs only managed a field goal, the team gained 52 yards offensively over the second half and overtime.
Not great.
But Daniels came out hot to start the game, with some excellent decision making, on-time throws, and fun-when-needed runs.
The team went into the half up 13-3, and had a 16-3 lead going into the fourth quarter.
That’s where things took a turn.
The defense gave up a long drive, 68 yards, and a touchdown to Pittsburgh tight end Darnell Washington. 16-10.
Daniels came out and responded with an interception on third down, and the Steelers managed to get into field goal range to make it 16-13.
No big deal, right?
The Bucs just needed to drain some clock, at least get a field goal, let the defense take it home. Wrong. The offense lost a yard over a series of three plays and had to punt after running a little over a minute’s worth of offense.
The Steelers went down and tied the game with another three points.
Daniels when went out and threw what could’ve been a pick-six on an atrocious attempt at throwing an out route to Bucs wideout Emeka Egbuka.
Steelers still only managed to get three points out of the turnover, despite starting inside the Bucs’ five-yard line.
Well, the Bucs’ offense somehow managed to get into field goal range with a little over a minute left to do it, and they sent it into overtime, only for the Steelers to score an easy six to begin extra time and the Bucs couldn’t respond.
Sigh. That was a lot, and almost all of it was bad.
If you wanted to squint for a silver lining, you could claim the Bucs showed “fight” or “grit” by sticking with it and forcing OT.
I’m not going to do that; instead, I’m going to state the obvious.
This team is cooked.
Head coach Todd Bowles is a dead man walking in terms of job security. The Bucs have an overpaid QB who’s due to return to play next week (fortunately for opposing defenses). The team lacks talent at impact positions to be a real threat any time soon.
Yet, as far as Bucs collapses go (and there have been plenty), this one felt less hurtful.
Was it because it’s almost a mercy killing of any hope anyone might’ve had for this season? Was it the low-stakes nature of a game that ultimately doesn’t mean much? Or was it the feeling of, “Hey, maybe this will force some long-overdue change?”
I don’t know, but this should be a fascinating (in a bad way) next few weeks for the Bucs. They haven’t done so yet, but the Bucs’ ownership could have its hand forced by more piss-poor play and fire a head coach mid-season.
With a season going this poorly, off the heels of one of the worst ends to a season I can think of for an NFL team in recent memory, it becomes a real question of everyone involved in this operation. Jason Licht may be thought of as a good general manager who’s done some great things in Tampa Bay, but it’s been an absolutely brutal stretch of seasons when looking at their drafts and free agency signings.
This season it’s been lineback Alex Anzalone as the big disappointing free agent and defensive lineman Rueben Bain Jr. as the draft bust. Last year it was linebacker Haason Reddick in free agency, and the year before’s draft class had another bust in the pass rush room in Chris Braswell.
It seems like every season Licht’s war room has made fine, sensible roster decisions, ones that I’ve even defended, and yet the most they have to show for it is one single playoff victory while winning the worst division in football a few years in a row.
Not exactly banner seasons, but since it’s the lowly Bucs, they’ve been just good enough to keep the people in charge happy.
Sometimes things just don’t work out even when the process isn’t flawed, but it’s the NFL. Results have to come at some point, and they haven’t recently.
It’s also hard to separate Licht from the Tom Brady era, as the team doesn’t win the Super Bowl without either of them, but at this point he’s had such minimal success without the former Patriot it’s hard not to wonder if it’s just time for both sides to part ways.
It’d be hard to do, but it’s also difficult to go through such disastrous seasons without major consequences and shake ups.
There is also the question of what to do about Baker. If the former No. 1 pick plays the way he did to start the season, how much worse does he have to do to lose his starting spot? Or does the team just eat this year and hope for a high draft pick?
Lots of nasty questions that frankly even the most pessimistic part of me didn’t anticipate having to answer this early.
Regardless, this is a doomed team not worth watching the rest of the NFL season. But hey, at least the weather was beautiful.
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This article appears in Oct. 15 – 21, 2026.