The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are 0-2 to start the 2026 NFL regular season, and they look just as bad as they did at the end of the last season when they collapsed and blew what should hae been a guaranteed playoff spot.
Quarterback Baker Mayfield has not been the worst player on the team - that dishonor would go to Alex Anzalone, followed closely by an even more highly paid defensive veteran in nose tackle Vita Vea - but he has been the most costly player, in the sense that his mistakes as the quarterback have been the back breakers to lose the Bucs these two games.
Mayfield fumbled the whole game away in Week 1 against the Cincinnati Bengals, and then he struggled to move the ball at all against one of the NFL's worst teams - a team that Trevor Lawrence and Liam Coen's Jacksonville Jaguars completely destroyed - in the Cleveland Browns, getting badly outplayed in embarrassing fashion by Deshaun Watson.
Bucky Irving has been super efficient for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
What makes Mayfield's performances even more disappointing is that some of his key players on offense have actually looked really good with the ball in their hands. And that could not be truer for feature running back Bucky Irving, who is out for revenge after injuries robbed him of a 2025 season to follow up an amazing 2024 campaign in which he was one of the NFL's very best running backs.
So far in the 2026 regular season, Irving has carried the rock 25 times in two games for 134 rushing yards, and with an average of 5.4 yards per carry and a rushing success rate of 60 percent, Irving is putting up the sort of monster efficiency numbers that are much closer to his stats in his healthy 2024 season than in his downtrodden 2025 campaign.
And you have to think, looking at how Bucky Irving is carrying the tote, that Zac Robinson and Todd Bowles should be calling his number a lot more than forcing Baker Mayfield and his mistakes on everyone. Irving was put under pressure the offseason with the signing of Kenny Gainwell as the supposed 1B running back, but Irving looks ten times the back right now, even catching 11 passes for 49 yards.
The Buccaneers have one of the NFL's most efficient all around feature backs, and it's a shame Mayfield's awful start is preventing Irving from getting to shine even more.
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