Injuries and blown leads plagued the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 2025 season. The team's former coach, now a franchise executive, reveals factors behind Baker Mayfield's struggles and the team's collapse.
The quarterback gets the most credit when his team wins and the most blame when his team loses, and that was certainly true for Baker Mayfield and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2025.
When the Bucs were among football's best teams -- 6-2 to start the season -- Mayfield got most of the credit, with 13 touchdown passes to just two interceptions.
When Tampa lost seven of its last nine games -- and the NFC South title for the first time this decade -- Mayfield got a lot of the blame.
Over Tampa's last nine games, Mayfield threw the same 13 touchdown passes as he did in his first eight, but threw seven more interceptions, several in key situations. But as former Bucs coach and current senior football consultant Bruce Arians pointed out, other factors were at play.
For one, Mayfield was playing hurt.
At various points in the season, Mayfield showed up on the injury report for a minor left shoulder sprain, an oblique strain, and a sore right knee.
In an interview with the "Up and Adams" podcast, Arians said he said the injuries affected Mayfield.
"We kept blowing leads," Arians said, "and I think he felt like he had to put it all on his shoulders. Early in the year, he had the magic, and he pulled the games out. Later in the year, he couldn’t quite get it done."
To Arians' point, the Bucs had second-half leads in four of their seven losses in that stretch, and if Tampa had won even one of those games, the team would have captured its sixth straight division title.
Any conversation about a team has to include the defense, and the Bucs didn't have a great one in 2025, finishing 20th in the league in scoring.
Tampa made a change at offensive coordinator to get a guy Mayfield knows well: Zac Robinson, who worked with Mayfield with the Los Angeles Rams before the quarterback moved on to Tampa and Robinson went to Atlanta, where he became the Falcons' offensive coordinator.
The only coordinator Tampa didn't fire after the season was the defensive coordinator, who is also the head coach. Todd Bowles is still the boss and isn't giving up defensive play-calling duties, either, so the defense will be under extra scrutiny in 2026.
So will Mayfield, as his turnovers this past season put the defense in tough situations on multiple occasions.
If 2026 doesn't go well for the Bucs, it could be the end for both Mayfield and Bowles in Tampa Bay.
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