When Wild Card Weekend rolls around, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be in attendance for the fifth straight year. It's the longest active streak among any NFC team and is second to only the mighty Kansas City Chiefs -- a team the Bucs have seen in the playoffs before and we all remember what happened when they did.
Tampa Bay is in the middle of its most successful streak in franchise history, as the fifth straight trip to the playoffs comes via a fourth consecutive NFC South title. The division so consistently running through Tampa Bay even after the Tom Brady era ended is one of the biggest plot twists we've ever seen with the Bucs, but it's also the most satisfying.
Last year the Bucs made it as far as the NFC Divisional Round where the Detroit Lions stopped them just short of the Championship Game. This year another trip to to Detroit is very much on the table, but it's not the only familiar part of the journey.
As the playoffs dawn, fans are mapping out their team's course to the playoffs and for the Bucs it's going to be a road the team has mostly already traveled. That's something that bodes very well for Tampa Bay to continue the little miracle run the team has been on over the last seven weeks.
2025 NFL Playoff Bracket: What is the Buccaneers path to the Super Bowl?
Wild Card Round
We already know who the Bucs will play in the Wild Card round, as the Washington Commanders are headed to Tampa Bay for a Sunday night showdown. It's a rematch of Week 1 and fans are hoping it goes more or less the same way it did then.
Tampa Bay dominated Washington in a 37-20 and held Jayden Daniels to just 184 yards and no touchdowns. Meanwhile, it was the first of many games Baker Mayfield threw for three or more touchdowns and kicked off what ended up being the best season of his career.
The Bucs are going to face a much better version of Jayden Daniels, though, but they're also getting a rookie quarterback playing in his first playoff game. We've seen him look mortal this season, as he was far from perfect against the Falcons in a game the Commanders won to help the Bucs get to where they are now. As has been the case most of the season, as long as Tampa Bay stays out of its own way, then there's no reason a ticket to the Divisional Round can't be punched.
Of course, nothing comes easy for the Bucs which is a hard lesson we've all learned time and time again this season. Something adding anxiety is how poorly Tampa Bay played in primetime recently, as the Bucs are 4-11 since 2020 in night games and lost every single one of them on the schedule this year.
For that superstitious crowd, though, it's worth noting that the last time that Tampa Bay and Washington met in the playoffs it was a primetime game on NBC. That game turned out alright and the Bucs ended up winning the Super Bowl a few weeks later.
Possible Divisional Round Opponents
There are only two teams the Bucs can't face if they reach the Divisional Round. If the Packers win they'll head to Detroit no matter what else happens, and the Lions being the No. 1 seed means Tampa Bay can't play there until the NFC Championship Game.
If the Eagles lose, the winner of the Vikings-Rams game will come to Tampa Bay for Divisional Round weekend and both are pretty great matchups fo the Bucs. Neither team is easy to beat, but we saw on Sunday night how the Vikings can be punched in the mouth and the Rams weren't blowing teams away for most of the season despite their winning ways.
Still, both the Vikings and Rams find ways to win games late in situations the Buccaneers have usually lost a grip on things. Minnesota's passing game would be a problem for a depleted Tampa bay secondary and anything Sean McVay does in the postseason is dangerous.
Baker Mayfield has beaten the Vikings before, but defensive coordinator Brian Flores hasn't faced Liam Coen. That could end up being a difference maker in a game where Coen can truly shine and polish his already glowing head coaching stock.
Los Angeles is the trickier matchup since Coen used to work for McVay and there's connections with Baker, even though it would make a better narrative than facing the Vikings.
A third possible matchup would be with the Eagles, who are a team the Bucs have already beaten before this season. Philly is truly a wild card, as Jalen Hurts hasn't played in two weeks and even though Saqoun Barkley beat up the Bucs defense nothing about the Eagles offense was particularly scary. Lest we forget that Philly has a knack for losing to Tampa Bay in the playoffs, which is a nice reversal of fortunes from how things used to be in the early-2000s.
Possible NFC Championship Game Opponents
There's a world where the Packers upset the Eagles and end up making a run, which would be mildly ideal for the Bucs since it would mean hosting the NFC Championship Game. It would happen against a hot Green Bay team if they make it that far, though, which is less fun but it wouldn't be the first time Tampa Bay beat the Packers to get to the Super Bowl (potentially to play the Chiefs again!).
Any talk of the NFC Championship Game for Tampa Bay means going back to Detroit for what amounts to Round 3 of a trilogy of fights with the Lions. Doing so would continue a comfortable theme for the Bucs, as there's a chance that in order to reach the Super Bowl Tampa Bay needs to beat Washington, Philadelphia, and Detroit -- all teams the Bucs have already beaten this season.
Much like the Commanders, though, the Bucs would be getting a much more fine tuned version of the Lions than they saw in Week 2. Detroit has one of the best offenses in football and create very obvious matchup issues all across the board for a struggling Tampa Bay defense.
Jahmyr Gibbs scored more touchdowns than anyone this season, Amon-Ra St. Brown is ripe to eat up the secondary and if he doesn't than it wouldn't be the first time Jameson Williams does. Sam LaPorta against a thin linebacking group is a potential nightmare and there's also a chance David Montgomery returns if the Lions make it this far.
The good news is that the Bucs would probably need to win a shootout to beat the Lions and they've proven to be well equipped to do exactly that. If there was ever a game for Liam Coen to confirm his status as a top head coaching candidate, it would be lighting the Lions up to reach the Super Bowl. If we're talking narratives, Baker Mayfield's career redemption arc would be nearly complete by going toe-to-toe with a top team in a title game and doing what we saw him so do much of during the season.
It's very possible that the Bucs lay a dud, but it's also possible that Baker goes off for four touchdowns and over 300 yards while Bucky Irving and the rest of the offense keep pace with the weapons Detroit has.
We've seen Tampa Bay march into Detroit as underdogs before and they left town with a win last time, and nearly did in the playoffs last year. It won't be easy, but the Buccaneers at least have a clear path the the Super Bowl this year and all they need to do is play to the level they did in games against the Chargers, Commanders, Eagles, and the Lions -- all playoff teams they beat -- and nothing is impossible.
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