Baker Mayfield, Buccaneers land massive Sunday Night Football matchup vs Bears

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are awaiting the release of their 2026 regular season schedule. 

As is tradition, bits and pieces of the schedule have begun to leak out ahead of the official unveiling. 

The first Bucs leak has surfaced, and it’s great news for Tampa Bay. 

Tampa Bay Buccaneers to face Chicago Bears on prime time in Week 9

The Buccaneers will travel to Soldier Field to take on the Bears on Sunday Night Football, per Aileen Hnatuik.

The matchup will pin two Heisman Trophy-winning, No. 1 overall picks against each other as Baker Mayfield takes on Caleb Williams in their first ever head-to-head matchup. 

It’ll be the teams’ first matchup since 2023, which was Mayfield’s first home win as a Buccaneer. 

It’s a high-stakes matchup between two potential NFC playoff teams, so it’ll be a great test for Tampa Bay. It will be a chess match between offensive mastermind Ben Johnson and defensive guru Todd Bowles. 

The Bears are coming off an 11-6 season that saw them win the NFC North for the first time since 2018 and win a playoff game. The Bucs are coming off an 8-9 season in which they missed the playoffs for the first time since 2019, and they’re trying to get back to contender status.

It’s the second year in a row the Bucs have been selected for a Sunday Night game, which is great news for the franchise. SNF is the most viewed time slot each week, averaging 23.5 million viewers last season. 

The NFL is very selective about who gets to play in these games — ten teams didn’t get a single SNF showing last year. The Bucs didn’t have one from 2009-2015, so the spotlight shouldn’t be taken for granted. 

This is just the first bit of Bucs schedule news, with plenty more to come leading up to the official release tonight at 8 p.m.. 

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