The Tampa Bay Buccaneers had a rancid afternoon in Ohio to kick off the 2026 NFL regular season, losing 33-27 to the Cincinnati Bengals as franchise quarterback Baker Mayfield announced himself to the league with a new contract by fumbling the game away.
Although the defense could do little to keep the Bucs in the game with Mayfield so intent on giving it away to Cincinnati, they also could have done more. Many key players on the Bucs were huge disappointments, and while a lot of focus has been on rookie first round pick Rueben Bain Jr.'s poor debut, it was the veterans like Vita Vea and Alex Anzalone who were truly the biggest letdowns.
Anzalone looked like the worst of Devin White 2.0 out there at the PayCor Stadium. He may have missed as many tackles as he made, and he allowed Mike Gesicki to maul the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense through the air, undoing the excellent work the Buccaneers cornerbacks put in to help shut Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins down.
Josiah Trotter wasted no time cementing himself as the leader of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense
The former Detroit Lions inside linebacker was far from a Lavonte David replacement, as even a washed up, injury prone David was ten times the player last season than Anzalone was in Week 1 against the Bengals.
On the other hand, a different Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive rookie had himself a whale of a ball game to at least somewhat make up for Bain's ghost-like debut. Josiah Trotter is living up to his NFL pedigree, and he flooded the stat sheet by leading the Buccaneers with 11 tackles while snagging an interception and recording a sack.
What makes Trotter's performance at the heart of the Bucs defense all the more impressive and important against Cincy was the fact that literally no other Buccaneers player had a single sack or an interception on Joe Burrow in Week 1.
Trotter already looks like the real heir to Lavonte David and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers best inside linebacker. Many people wanted the Bucs to trade up for Jacob Rodriguez rather than settling for Trotter and were even viewing Trotter as too raw to make an immediate impact as a rookie, but in the first game of the season, Trotter was the Bucs best overall defensive player. And when you compare him to Alex Anzalone, it may not take long for Trotter to officially become the new leader of the defense at inside linebacker.
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