Bengals 33, Buccaneers 27 — Week 1: Four Strips From a Defense That Ranked 29th

Cincinnati's defense took the ball away four times on Sunday. Myles Murphy and Barrett Carter split a sack of Baker Mayfield on third and nine with six 29 left in the first quarter, Murphy knocked it loose, and Demetrius Knight picked it up at the Tampa Bay 27 and ran it in. Three plays into Tampa Bay's next drive, Bryan Cook knocked the ball out of Bucky Irving's hands after a seven-yard catch and Boye Mafe recovered. Early in the second quarter, Mayfield scrambled eight yards to the Cincinnati four, Carter knocked that one loose, and Cook recovered it in the end zone for a touchback. And with 10 41 left in the fourth, Mafe sacked Mayfield, stripped him, and Tedarrell Slaton recovered at the Tampa Bay 44. Four fumbles forced, four recovered, four sacks, and the Bengals won 33 to 27 at Paycor Stadium with an offense that scored two touchdowns all afternoon.

Start with that defense, because a year ago it finished 20-ninth in the league in expected points allowed per play, and on Sunday it was the reason the Bengals won. Tampa Bay ran 32 pass plays and lost eight expected points doing it. Expected points added is what a snap was worth given the down, the distance and the field position, and on defense a big negative number is the good direction — those are points the offense gave back by running the play at all. −8 on 32 pass plays is the fifth-best pass defense of the 16 teams in Sunday's early games. 216 yards through the air, no passing touchdowns, and the four sacks were split among Murphy and Carter, Kris Jenkins, Jonathan Allen and Mafe. Against the run it was −1 and a half expected points across 19 carries, 90 yards, and two touchdowns — Irving around left end from the 10 with one 54 left in the half, and Mayfield up the middle from the nine with three 25 left in the game, which made it a six-point game. The four takeaways are the most any team managed in the early games. The one thing to hold against the unit: Tampa Bay converted five of 10 third downs, and stopping half of them is thirteenth of the 16.

The passing offense was the unit that nearly gave it back. 36 pass plays, 254 yards, one touchdown, one interception, and −3 expected points across the afternoon — tenth of the 16. 18 of the 36 were successful, meaning they gained what the situation asked for, which is a fine rate; the total is negative because of one throw. Third and five from the Cincinnati 34, two 24 left in the third, up 27 to 13, Joe Burrow short right for Andrei Iosivas, Josiah Trotter stepped in front of it at the 38 and went the other way for a touchdown. −7 and a half expected points and 13 points of win probability on one snap, and a 14-point game was a seven-point game. Before that throw the passing game had been +4 and a half at halftime; after it, the second half came out at −7 on 16 pass plays. The touchdown came on third and one from the Tampa Bay two with one 51 left in the first quarter, short left to Mike Gesicki. Cincinnati converted eight of 14 third downs, second-best of the 16.

The run game was steady and unremarkable: 26 rushing plays, a hundred seven yards, one touchdown, +2 and a half expected points, sixth of the 16 by expected points per carry. Chase Brown scored from the five up the middle with five 35 left in the half, at the end of a 12-play, 80-yard drive that began at the Cincinnati 20.

Which brings the part that kept this close. 15 snaps inside the Tampa Bay 20 produced two touchdowns — thirteenth of the 15 early-game teams that had a red-zone snap. First and goal from the four with the half running out produced a two-yard run, an incompletion and a catch for no gain, and a 20-yard field goal. And the kicking ledger is why the red zone did not decide it: Evan McPherson made four of four, from 20, 55, 58 32. The 55 came after a nine-yard sack on third and seven at the Tampa Bay 28, and the 58 came on the first possession after the pick-six, with the lead down to seven. Three expected points on that kick alone.

The last possession belongs in the ledger too. Up 33 to 27 with three 14 left, first and 10 at the Cincinnati 24, Burrow hit Dohnte Meyers short right for 18, and with one 12 left on third and one at the Tampa Bay 17 he kept it himself behind the left guard for one yard and the first down. Seven plays from the Cincinnati 24 to the Tampa Bay 16, then a kneel, no points, and Tampa Bay never got the ball back. Cincinnati led on 87 percent of the plays in this game.

Now the part where a Week 1 episode has to be honest about what it is. The ranks in this episode are against the 16 teams that played in the early window on Sunday, not the whole league. What there is, is last year. In 2025 this defense finished 20-ninth in the league in expected points allowed per play, 20-eighth in the rate of plays it allowed to succeed, and 20-seventh in third-down stops, and the team won six games. On Sunday it was fifth of 16 against the pass and it took the ball away four times. That is the contradiction, and it is one game. The offense finished first in the league last season in touchdowns per red-zone snap, one on every four; on Sunday it scored twice on 15. If you want one sentence out of this: the defense won a game the offense could not finish, which is the opposite of what this team was in January, and the honest read is that one Sunday against one opponent does not turn a 20-ninth-ranked defense into a sixth-ranked one.

Cincinnati is at Houston next Sunday. Watch whether the pass rush travels, and watch the red zone, in that order.

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_Data via nflverse._