Winners and losers from Buccaneers' stressful 29-27 win over Jets

Few times has the phrase a win is a win felt so fitting than after what happened to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday.

After blowing a 17-point fourth quarter lead in about as stunning a way as possible, the Bucs battled back to win their third straight game as time expired. First, it was a missed kick by Younghoe Koo, then it was the masterful game-winning drive last Monday, and this time, it was a walk-off field goal that secured a 3-0 start to the season.

It wasn't pretty, but all that matters is Tampa Bay remains undefeated and continues to defy the odds. The subversion of our expectations based on all the other times we've seen the Bucs in positions similar to where they were on Sunday has been both thrilling and unnecesarily stressful.

Still, the Bucs head into a huge matchup next week with the Philadelphia Eagles owning a two game lead in the NFC South and having navigated a tricky start to the season in the best way possible.

Winners and losers from Buccaneers 29-27 win over Jets in Week 3

Winner: Baker Mayfield

What more is there to say about Baker Mayfield and how important he is to the team? There are two sides of the Baker debate that meet in the middle where there shouldn't be much of a discussion about where he ranks among all quarterbacks in the league.

Tampa Bay does not win any of its games this season without Baker Mayfield, full stop.

Baker powered the go-ahead drive in Week 1 and orchestrated a masterpiece on the game-winning drive in Houston last week. He did it again on Sunday when he almost effortlessly led the Bucs into field goal range for another last-second victory.

While the blocked field goal was an objectively stunning turn of events, there wasn't a single point between that and the end of the game where Bucs fans felt nervous about how things would play out. That's the power of Baker, as he gives everyone a confidence that hasn't ever existed in Tampa Bay outside of the greatest quarterback in history coming to town.

That's incredible company to keep, and it's not unfair to feel like the wins with Baker mean more than the Brady ones. Everything with Baker has such an earned quality to it and Sundays' win, while ugly, was ever bit satisifying.

It doesn't happen without Baker -- not the vibes and certainly not the victory.

Loser: Mental Errors and Penalties

For as great as it was to watch the Bucs win a blowout and finally snap the creamsicle curse -- sort of -- it's impossible to talk about Sunday's game without starting with all of the penalties.

There's no nice way to say it, Tampa Bay was abysmal when it came to staying out of its own way. The opening offensive drive featured five holding calls that negated multiple plays that could have resulted in a touchdown. Instead, a brutal Luke Haggard hold helped force the Bucs to kick a field goal, which was an unfortunate theme of the first half.

A few drives later Elijah Klein was called for a holding penalty that negated a first down run by Rachaad White and ultimately led to zero points being scored.

That was the kind of game it was, and it cut both ways. There were 10 penalties called on the first 19 plays of the game, which made for some truly atrocious football to watch. The Bucs eventually snapped out of it and ran away with the game, but it took much longer than it should was harder than it needed to be.

It's one thing to have that sort of game against the Jets, but better teams won't be as forgiving. This is now three straight weeks when something that should have been fatal didn't end up hurting the Bucs in the end, and it's trend that simply cannot be allowed to continue.

Winner: Chase McLaughlin

After a brutally bumpy start to the season, Chase McLaughlin leveled out right when the Bucs needed him to most. McLaughlin missed kicks in each of his first two games this year but it's hard to call his only miss on Sunday his fault. Will McDonald's block was not on McLaughlin, and he answered by drilling a game-winning kick with the sort of confidence that he needed to show.

It's easy for kickers to get the yips, but McLaughlin's performance against the Jets suggests he never really lost his mojo. We'll see how things continue to play out, but he was clutch in a pressure situation after a pretty traumatic blocked kick that swung the momentum of the game.

Just listen to this:

That doesn't sound like a guy who is rattled after a rough start to the season, let alone in a pressure situation like he was in on Sunday. Lesser kickers might have let that impact their following kick, but not McLaughlin, and it was refreshing to see.

Loser: Special Teams

What in the actual heck is going on with special teams in Tampa Bay?

For a third straight week, some sort of special teams disaster has nearly cost the Bucs a win, and it's a concerning trend that is showing no signs of stopping. There was kicking chaos throughout the league this week, but the Bucs have been mired in mistakes from missed kicks to blocked punts to what happened with Will McDonald.

Beyond the blocked field goal, things have just felt stale on special teams for Tampa. Riley Dixon has quietly been pretty bad this year, averaging just 47.7 yards per punt which is just a tick better than the 45.5 average that got Jake Camarda cut last October.

Not being able to flip the field is a huge issue that needs to be fixed, among the various other things that are holding the Bucs back thanks to special teams. Something has to change, otherwise something it going to give and chances are it will be at the most inopportune time possible.

Winner: Jamel Dean

Credit where it's due, Jamel Dean provided us with a key turning point that helped lead to the big win.

After one of the sloppiest first quarters we've ever seen, the Bucs were trying to stabilize in a game they should have been running away with. That didn't really start to happen until Dean flipped a switch on an electrifying pick-six right before halftime.

Tampa Bay needed a spark, and Dean provided it:

Dean has been a liability at times on defense for the Bucs, but he showed up in a big moment when the team needed him the most. It was a vintage Grave Diggers moment and one that helped swing momentum all the way to Tampa Bay's side for almost the rest of the game from that point on.

Winner: Emeka Egbuka

We're starting to run out of ways to articulate how incredible the rise of Emeka Egbuka has been. He scored touchdowns in each of his first two games and was instrumental in Tampa Bay's win over the Jets despite not reaching the endzone.

We'll get to what he did at the end of the game in a moment, because the way he started it was just as incredible. Much like last week, when the Bucs needed a spark on offense, Egubka was on the receiving end of a one-handed highlight reel catch that got things moving.

Later in the game he had a catch get ruled incomplete even though it certainly seemed like it he made yet another highlight catch.

If that one didn't count, his insane grab on the game-winning drive certainly did. Egbuka reeled in a huge pass that juiced Tampa Bay's offense and helped power them to victory. With Mike Evans potentially needing time off with a hamstring injury, Emeka is giving Bucs fans a dose of Egbuka Matata, which truly means no worries.

Loser: First drive defense

Even without the atrociousness of the penalties that were called, the Buccaneers opening drive defense continues to leave a lot to be desired.

This marked three straight weeks where an opposing offense scored points to start the game, even though it was only a field goal this time around. It should have been nothing, though, as the Bucs had New York stopped twice only to have penalties extend the drive.

Logan Hall and Lavonte David both got flagged on plays that should have been drive-enders, but instead allowed the Jets to keep marching down the field. Combined with some soft defense th Bucs were essentially begging New York to score -- which they did.

Tampa Bay had managed to erase the opening drive woes in each of the first three weeks but it would be nice if the defense could hand the keys over to offense with a blank slate and a chance to control from the start rather than play from behind.

Winner: Curse Busting

Two curses were mercifully lifted on Sunday, even if things got a little harier than we would have liked.

For the first time since re-introducing them into the uniform rotation, the Bucs won a game wearing throwbacks. It wasn't the creamsicles, so that curse is technically still alive, but let's not split hairs at a time like this.

The better curse that the Bucs busted on Sunday was the one where they seemed incapable of starting the season 3-0. Tampa Bay had been given that chance six times over the last two decades but failed every single time -- including twice with Tom Brady -- but finally got over the hump this year.

It's the first time since 2005 that the Bucs have started a season 3-0, and it's yet another example of the team taking something we thought we knew about them and subverting expectations. What better way to celebrate the 50th anniversary than re-writing a little.

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