From the top-down, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers' Week 3 loss to the Denver Broncos was absolutely dismal.
The Broncos made the Bucs defense look foolish on their opening drive, marching 69-yards before rookie quarterback Bo Nix's three-yard touchdown run gave them a 7-0 lead.
Nix and co. never looked back after that and the end result was one of the more frustrating Bucs losses in recent memory. It's easy to get lost in the negatives of everything and Tampa Bay certainly has a lot to work on after the defeat. Fortunately, the Bucs have plenty of veteran leadership, despite being one of the NFL's youngest teams, that can help pick up the pieces and ensure a slip-up like this doesn't happen again.
"You can probably tell on the tape how much they wanted it more than us," Baker Mayfield told reporters after the game. "... This is a good lesson for our team, overall of, you have to prepare like you're playing in a playoff game every week, or else this can happen. I mean, we got our asses kicked. Physicality-wise, execution-wise, all over the board for us. So, it's a good lesson for our team, for the young guys that haven't seen it before, of what you need to be prepared for [and] how detailed we need to be.
"For it to happen this early-on, I'm going to take the positives from it and take this one on the chin. There's nothing else to do besides that, and go from there."
That's the exact message a young Bucs team needs to hear - a team that was (and still is) among the top-5 youngest rosters in the NFL. And, the team has become even greener thanks to the recent slate of injuries to key players like Antoine Winfield Jr., Luke Goedeke, Vita Vea, Calijah Kancey, and others.
Mayfield also pointed the finger at himself for causing problems during the game. The Bucs offensive line gave up 7.0 sacks and nine QB hits on the day, but there were plenty of times when Mayfield either left the pocket too early or held onto the ball too long, which exacerbated things.
"There were a few pressures today that are actually on me," said Mayfield. "There were some, when we get into some of these tempo drives, [like] the two minute-ish thoughts, there's a mindset of trying to fix the protections when there's pressures. And there's also the mindset of, snap the ball, get it out of your hands. So, not all that's on the o-line...
"... I'm going to take a lot of ownership of this. The ball needs to be out [and] delivered to the right damn people, and some of that won't happen."
"We definitely have to block it better and then some of the times you have to get rid of the ball. It's a combination of both," Bucs head coach Todd Bowles said after the game. "We have to play better all the way around."
That's exactly how leadership is balanced: taking accountability, but also holding others to the standard that's expected to permeate throughout the building.
The Bucs have certain obstacles they need to overcome that they can't control, like injuries, but as long as they have the right leaders still on the field, Week 3's letdown should be more the exception than the rule in 2024.
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