Buccaneers 27, Bengals 33 — Week 1: Four Fumbles and Not One Punt

Tampa Bay had the ball nine times in Cincinnati on Sunday and did not punt once. Two possessions ended in touchdowns, two in field goals, one in a kneel to end the half, and four ended with the ball on the ground and a Bengal on top of it. That is the game. 33 to 27, Cincinnati, at Paycor Stadium, and the Buccaneers lost it by six with an offense that never once had to send out the punt team.

Start with the fumbles, because they were the difference and they came in every shape. Third and nine at the Tampa Bay 33, six 29 left in the first quarter, up three to nothing: Myles Murphy and Barrett Carter split a sack of Baker Mayfield, Murphy knocked it out, and Demetrius Knight scooped it at the 27 and scored. 20 points of win probability on one snap, the biggest swing of the game, and Tampa Bay was behind for good. Three plays into the next drive, third and 14, Bucky Irving caught a seven-yard pass and Bryan Cook knocked it loose; Boye Mafe recovered at the 33. Then the one that will be hardest to watch again: first and five at the Cincinnati 12, 12 15 left in the half, down 14 to three, Mayfield scrambled eight yards to the four, Carter got the ball out, and Cook recovered it in the end zone. Touchback. Six expected points gone on a play that gained eight yards. And with 10 41 left in the fourth, down 30 to 20, Mafe sacked Mayfield, stripped him, and Tedarrell Slaton recovered at the 44. Four turnovers, the most of any team in Sunday's early games, and none of them was an interception.

The passing offense, fumbles aside, was thin. 32 pass plays, 216 yards, no touchdowns, four sacks, and −8 expected points added. Expected points added is what a snap was worth given the down, the distance and the field position; for an offense a negative number means the plays left the team worse off than before it ran them. −8 is twelfth of the 16 teams in the early games. 15 of the 32 were successful, which is a respectable rate — the passing game moved the chains and did not score, and the yards that mattered came in two throws: Chris Godwin short middle for 30 on third and three from the Tampa Bay 32 with three 56 left in the half, and Irving short left for 22 on third and three in the third quarter. The two touchdowns on offense were both runs: 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 to play, which cut it to six. The run game as a whole was 19 carries, 90 yards, −1 and a half expected points. Tampa Bay converted five of 10 third downs, fourth-best of the 16.

The defense kept the Buccaneers in it, and it scored the touchdown that made the fourth quarter a contest. Cincinnati ran 36 pass plays and came out at −3 expected points, which is seventh-best of the 16 early-game defenses, on 254 yards and one touchdown. Most of that is one play: third and five from the Cincinnati 34, two 24 left in the third, Bengals up 27 to 13, Joe Burrow short right for Andrei Iosivas, and Josiah Trotter jumped it at the 38 and went the distance. 13 points of win probability, and it was 27 to 20. Against the run the defense allowed a hundred seven yards on 26 carries and +2 and a half expected points, eleventh of the 16. Cincinnati converted eight of 14 third downs, and stopping six of 14 is fifteenth of the 16. Inside the 20 the defense was good: 15 Cincinnati red-zone snaps, two touchdowns, and a stand with the half running out that turned first and goal from the four into a 20-yard field goal.

Two more things in the ledger. Chase McLaughlin made both his field goals, from 34 51, and Cincinnati's Evan McPherson made four, including a 55 and a 58; the 58 came on the first Bengals possession after Trotter's touchdown and pushed the lead back to 10. And after Mayfield's scramble with three 25 left made it 33 to 27 with the kick, Cincinnati ran seven plays from its own 24 to the Tampa Bay 16, converted a third and one on a quarterback keeper with one 12 left, and knelt on it. Tampa Bay led this game for one stretch: three to nothing, from nine 12 of the first quarter until Knight's return.

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 offense finished twentieth in the league in expected points per play and 20-sixth in passing success rate, at 42 percent, and the team won eight games; on Sunday the passing game succeeded on 47 percent of its plays, which is better than that, and produced no touchdowns and four fumbles, which is not. The defense finished third in the league against the run a year ago and 20-eighth in the rate of pass plays it allowed to succeed, at 49 percent. On Sunday the run defense allowed +2 and a half, and the pass defense allowed a 50 percent success rate and took one back for a touchdown. If you want one sentence out of this: the ball was on the ground four times, and everything else about this game — an offense that never punted, a defense that scored — says the Buccaneers were closer than the score, and one afternoon cannot tell you whether the fumbles were a Sunday or a habit.

Tampa Bay is home to Cleveland next Sunday. Watch the ball security first, and watch whether the pass protection holds up after four sacks, in that order.

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_Data via nflverse._