After a season derailed by devastating injuries, Tampa Bay’s front line looks to reclaim its dominant form and provide Baker Mayfield the elite protection necessary to win.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have themselves to blame for crashing, burning and failing to win the NFC South in 2025.
The team lost seven of its last nine games, finished with a losing record, and, even in a division where everybody else had a losing record, the Bucs lost out on a tiebreaker to the Carolina Panthers.
But as with anything, context is important.
Part of the reason Tampa fell off the way it did was because of injuries.
Defensively, the Bucs didn't have promising defensive tackle Calijah Kancey for 14 of 17 regular-season games.
On offense, QB Baker Mayfield played hurt all year, RB Bucky Irving missed seven games and the offensive line had to use nine different combinations throughout the year.
Starting right tackle Luke Goedeke missed six games due to injury. All-Pro left tackle Tristan Wirfs missed five. Right guard Cody Mauch missed all but two games, and left guard Ben Bredeson missed the last six.
It's hard to say how much of the line being banged up had to do with the Bucs' offense going from fourth in the league in scoring in 2024 to tied for 16th in 2025, but it's hard to argue that it didn't play a role.
When the Bucs' offensive line is on, Goedeke feels it's one of the best in the NFL.
“That’s kind of the caliber of players that we are and that we uphold the standards to,” Goedeke said in a video posted to the team's official website. “You look at our starters … we have some of the best O-linemen in the NFL. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be a top O-line unit in the NFL.”
To back up Goedeke's point, Wirfs is one of the best offensive linemen in franchise history, having made it to the Pro Bowl in five of his first six seasons and three times being named All-Pro, with first-team honors in 2021 and '24.
Goedeke didn't allow a sack in 416 pass blocking snaps last season, per Pro Football Focus.
When Mauch was healthy in 2024, he only allowed pressure on 7.7% of snaps, which was one of the best in the league per PFF, and PFF ranked Bredeson seventh out of 81 guards in pass blocking last year.
Graham Barton was drafted in the first round two years ago, and if all goes well, the Bucs will have their center of the future.
As for the present, it will be hard for the Bucs OL to have worse luck in 2026 than it did in 2025.
At least one team legend felt that Mayfield didn't trust his OL, and that will have to change for the Bucs to get to where they want to go.
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