The Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense was the bigger culprit in the team's collapse during the second half of the 2025 NFL regular season, as the Bucs went from Super Bowl contenders to pretenders to not even making the playoffs in the same division as the Carolina Panthers and the Atlanta Falcons.
At the same time, the Buccaneers offense has to bear a lot of criticism for what happened last season, too. Baker Mayfield missed some big throws and could have played better as the main man in charge of the offense, and the bevy of injuries that mounted in the middle of the season, including to the Bake himself, certainly did not help either.
But when you listen to the Buccaneers players and coaches talk about the upcoming 2026 NFL season and all the excitement they have for working with former Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator Zac Robinson as the new leader of their O this year, you get the sense more and more that Josh Grizzard really was a huge albatross to the team.
Bucs players are excited about Zac Robinson
After Emeka Egbuka, the other Buccaneers breakout young star wide receiver, Jalen McMillan, had no problems with throwing the former Tampa Bay Buccaneers offensive coordinator under the bus.
“Last year, we had a lot of plays that weren’t called. This year, we’re repping a lot of them," said McMillan, adding that the Buccaneers are going to be opening up the playbook more with Robinson in charge.
Egbuka said pretty much the same thing, and it is not hard to see that the biggest playmakers in the Bucs offense are thrilled about the change in offensive coordinator. Zac Robinson had some good ideas for the Atlanta Falcons offense in 2025 that he could not execute due to personnel issues, and whlie Kyle Pitts and quarterback Kirk Cousins got to carve up the Buccaneers in a crucial prime time game at the end of the season, there's no doubt that Baker Mayfield is a much better signal caller for Robinson to work with than Captain Kirk.
The Buccaneers faithful will not get their hopes up until they see it on the field for a sustained period of time - even more than just the half season we all saw in 2025 - but it is not hard to get a little bit excited when the players themselves are seeing a difference.
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