The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are now below .500 after a devastating loss to the Carolina Panthers last weekend that now puts them behind the eight ball for the NFC South crown and the only remaining playoff spot they can fight for with a record hovering around dead even.
There are so many players and coaches in the building who need to step it up and be honest about their contributions this season, but what does not help is that the Pro Bowl voting and some of the perception of these players seems to be inflated.
Baker Mayfield tends to be the magnet attracting the most criticism, becaus he is easy for people to hate since he is loud, brash, and often inconsistent. But moreso than Mayfield, there is a big name on the defensive side of the ball who undeservingly made the Pro Bowl and has been an outright ghost for this suddenly horrid Buccaneers defense.
From DPOY candidate to disappointment
That player would be safety Antoine Winfield Jr. He was legitimately one of the best defensive players in the league for years, and that reputation is likely why he earned a Pro Bowl nod from fan voters this season despite being one of the worst starting safeties in the NFL this season; he clearly is not even the best safety on his own team, as Tykee Smith has lapped him up.
The 27 year old Winfield was an all around force just a couple of years ago and a first team All Pro who intercepted passes, sacked the quarterback, forced fumbles at a league high clip, and bumped the run as a sure handed tackling machine and a solid coverage safety. Basically, he could do anything and everything at a high level.
Now in 2025, Winfield has been the opposite of that, and his stat sheet reads like the Devin White of Safeties. Winfield is racking up a whole lot of garbage, clean up tackles on a Buccaneers defense that is, quite frankly, garbage as a whole.
No player in the NFL on the defensive side has fallen off as hard over the past couple of seasons as Winfield, as the difference between this 2025 campaign and his 2023 season in which he was a legitimate Defensive Player of the Year candidate is night and day.
Winfield is getting blown apart for nearly 18 yards per completion allowed, and whlie he is actually missing fewer tackles this season and giving up a much better QB Rating than his quietly poor 2024 season, his overall impact and numbers are still closer to 2024 than they were to 2023, and that's honestly wild to see and devastating to the efficacy of this Bucs defense.