Waiting for help, hope hasn't been a good game plan for Buccaneers

TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have wandered back to a crossroads they swore they were done visiting, the intersection of Overhyped Avenue and Uh-oh Boulevard.

A 5-1 start morphed into a 6-5 collapse, the kind of slump that makes you wonder if the early surge was real. They’ve dropped three straight, misplaced a good chunk of swagger and have spent more time studying the injury report than the game plan.

Receiver Chris Godwin finally returned last Sunday. Running back Bucky Irving (foot/shoulder), guard Ben Bredeson (hamstring) and outside linebacker Haason Reddick (knee/ankle) might be back tomorrow against the Arizona Cardinals.

But Baker Mayfield said the quiet part out loud: the waiting is the problem. Whatever happened to that scrappy, duct-taped bunch that rattled off four straight game-winning drives in the final minute, back when the Bucs didn’t need reinforcements because they were the reinforcements?

“There’s ways to look at it,” Mayfield said. “And I think, you know, from a positive perspective, yes, we’re potentially getting those guys back soon, but not waiting for that to happen. And I think that’s where we’re at offensively, is, let’s not wait for this guy to make the play. OK, he’s back now. He’s going to take the workload. Let’s have the attitude that I’m going to be the guy that makes a difference. I’m going to make the difference. Making the block, whatever it is. Run. Catch. And so that’s, that’s where we’re at is we’ve shown that we can win with whoever’s out there. So why not now?”

The Bucs were shaken by the 34-7 loss to the Los Angeles Rams, a game that was over at halftime.

Mayfield suffered a sprained left ACL joint in his non-throwing shoulder and returned in the second half wearing a sling on his left arm. He plans to start Sunday, but backup Teddy Bridgewater took a lot of first-team reps in practice and is better prepared to step in if needed.

Defensively, the Bucs appear to have a confidence problem. Against the New England Patriots, they yielded three plays of more than 50 yards for scores. Last Sunday, it was four pass completions of more than 20 yards, including one for a touchdown.

“When you give up those amount of points, you know it’s technique,” Bucs outside linebackers coach/run game coordinator Larry Foote. “As far as a player’s standpoint, you have to work on your technique. You have to do some pre-snap awareness as far as thinking and understanding you have to limit the possibilities. As coaches, we need to coach up the technique a little better. We can hammer on some points of what we’re trying to get, but at the end of the day, you have to make plays.

“I think if you look at our third downs, you don’t want to just point out one specific area, but normally when teams are picking up third downs, points come behind that. That’s part of our focus, we have to get off the field. We have to make plays ... everybody.”

Despite their wobble, the Bucs still control their own destiny. At 6-5, they own a slim lead over Carolina (6-6), which hosts the Rams on Sunday and faces the Seahawks (Week 17) while finishing the year with two games in three weeks versus the Bucs.

The Falcons are 4-7 and will have to go the rest of the way with Kirk Cousins at quarterback following the season-ending knee injury to Tampa’s Michael Penix Jr. If they run the table, they have a chance to contend at 10-7 but they have a Dec. 7 game against the Seahawks before playing the Bucs on Thursday night football in Tampa.

The Bucs could win the NFC South at 9-8, providing they beat Atlanta and Carolina at least once in the final three weeks of the regular season.

Bucs head coach Todd Bowles said he and his staff have contemplated lineup changes and have looked at their schemes on both sides of the ball.

‘You’re always thinking about schematic changes," he said. “Personnel changes. Have to think about it. And it’s been a different guy here and there. It hasn’t been everybody at one time. You can’t have 10 guys playing well and one guy not playing well on any given week, and that has to stop. I thought for the most part, the big play stopped. ... We just got to pay attention to detail. We got to coach it better and play it better.”

Following the loss to the Rams, linebacker Lavonte David made another impassioned plea for players to hold each other accountable for their performance.

“Everybody has to look at themselves in the mirror and decide not just what type of team you want to be, but individually, what type of person you want to be, what type of player you want to be when you step on that field. You’ve got a lot to play for,” David said. “The name on the front of your jersey and the name on the back of your jersey.”

Mayfield was pretty succinct when he said there’s been too much reliance on the belief players still recovering from injury will save the season when that’s not the way they built a fast start.

“Let’s not wait for some of these guys that have had a ton of reps to come back; you can do it, too,” Mayfield said. “Instill that confidence and go out, trust yourself and fly around and have fun. That’s really what I am going to preach to the offense. That’s what I’m looking for this week is confidence, fly around, let’s go play our brand of football and it’s time to do that.”

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