Tampa Bay Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles fancies himself as a defensive guru, and he might actually be onto something this season. After a horrendous 2025 NFL regular season performance by the defense, which was largely culpable for the embarrassing collapse in the second half of the season, the Bucs defense has been doing its best to carry the team, playing almost as well as any unit in the league.
The Buccaneers defense put on a clinic on Sunday Night Football. The Chicago Bears had no problem torching the best secondary in the NFL in prime time the previous week, dominating the defending champion Seattle Seahawks 34-17. But after a hot start against Tampa Bay, Caleb Williams and Chicago's offense got completely shut down. Jacob Parrish and Zyon McCollum put the NFL on notice as they continued to play at an All-Pro level in front of the national audience, while safety Tykee Smith was incredible as well. This is Tampa Bay's best secondary in years.
The Buccaneers picked off one of the NFL's best young quarterbacks four times and forced five total turnovers, and while that still was not good enough to get the win, it would have been sufficient on any other day if the Buccaneers own starting quarterback somehow wasn't even worse than the guy who threw four picks. Still, that shouldn't stop the defense from getting their flowers.
Buccaneers have a Super Bowl-caliber secondary
And the Bucs interceptions were not easy ones either. Zyon McCollum showed better hands, coordination, and ball hawking on his two picks than either Chris Godwin or Emeka Egbuka all season.
McCollum and Parrish are sitting on six combined interceptions, with linebacker Alex Anzalone tying McCollum for the team lead with his fourth interception in the win over the Bears, too.
Tampa Bay has the most interceptions of any team in the NFL and is allowing fewer than six yards per pass attempt. They have the most dynamic pass defense in the league, and all of their stars - Smith, Parrish, McCollum, and rookie Keionte Scott - are young and up and coming. And when you deep it, all the great Super Bowl teams that made it multiple times in the last 10 years had great secondaries like the Seattle Seahawks, Denver Broncos, and New England Patriots.
The Buccaneers are building something special in the secondary under Todd Bowles. This unit can be the foundation of a Super Bowl-winning team in the future; it's just too bad Baker Mayfield and the offense stink so much that most people aren't taking notice of arguably the NFL's best defense.
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