The Tampa Bay Buccaneers came into Week 4 of the 2026 NFL regular season knowing full well that getting pressure on Green Bay Packers embattled franchise quarterback Jordan Love would be key to any winning gameplan. But, alas, the Bucs lost 17-14, and a big reason why they suffered their fourth straight defeat to start the season was their total inability to put Love under duress.
Tampa did not register a single sack on Love, who was far from impressive even with a clean pocket. And you can only imagine how much better the Buccaneers would have done if they were able to get a few more shots on Love and collapse that pocket a bit. They only even hit Love twice, with one QB hit coming from nose tackle Vita Vea and the other from underrated strong safety Tykee Smith. That means none of the defensive ends or outside linebackers, the main players who are supposed to get after the quarterback, even took one shot at Love.
The Buccaneers desperately need to generate a pass rush
It's an embarrassing situation for any defense to be in, and we saw time and time again how little pressure the Tampa Bay Buccaneers got on the quarterback. Rookie Rueben Bain Jr. has been unable to affect the game at all when he was hyped as an immediate difference-maker after a great preseason and training camp, but all of the disappointment cannot fall on the shoulders of a rookie, even if that rookie was a No. 15 overall pick. To be fair, we haven't really seen the best of Bain due to injury; he's only appeared in two games at the very beginning of the season and will continue to need more time as he heals from both shoulder and groin injuries.
Where is Yaya Diaby in his contract year? And what on earth is the rest of defensive line doing? Even Vea just geting one QB hit isn't good enough. Against a Green Bay Packers offensive line that literally looked like one of the worst in the NFL coming into Week 3, you'd expect a veteran superstar who just got rewarded a massive payday to totally control the game at the line of scrimmage.
Right now, the only bright spot for the Buccaneers pass rush is David Walker, who was playing well as the only player on the Bucs with multiple sacks before the Packers blanked him on Sunday.
Al-Quadin Muhammad has been a source of interior pressure on the defensive line, but with just two quarterback hits each for Muhammad and Walker, it's not like these guys are anywhere near the NFL leaderboard either; they just look good compared to the dross around them.
The Buccaneers pass rush is a failure of multiple levels and multiple players, and while Todd Bowles should continue to bear criticism as its grand architect and for his inability to develop talents like Diaby, he isn't the primary problem. Look, he can't be the one to beat the tackle off the edge or bull rush the center. The players in the Buccaneers front seven are not good enough at the NFL level, and after getting sacked nearly three times per game in his other three games, Love not getting sacked once is an indictment on the Buccaneers.
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