The Buccaneers are 0-3, Baker Mayfield is expected to miss multiple games and Todd Bowles suddenly has to save Tampa Bay’s season with an undrafted rookie quarterback.
Todd Bowles didn’t need another problem.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are winless. Their offense has sputtered. A team that entered the season expecting to contend in the NFC South is already watching its margin for error disappear.
Now Bowles has to figure out how to save the season without Baker Mayfield.
Mayfield suffered a dislocated thumb on his throwing hand during Tampa Bay’s loss to Chicago and is expected to miss at least three weeks, according to Pewter Report.
That leaves undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels in position to take over an 0-3 football team desperately needing a win.
For Daniels, it’s an enormous opportunity.
For Bowles, it could become something else entirely.
A career-defining stretch.
Buccaneers Weren’t Supposed to Be Here
Tampa Bay entered 2026 with expectations.
The Buccaneers weren’t supposed to be rebuilding. They weren’t supposed to be figuring out whether their quarterback was good enough. They certainly weren’t supposed to be thinking about the top of the 2027 NFL Draft.
They had just committed three years and $165 million to Mayfield.
The Buccaneers believed they had their quarterback and enough talent around him to contend.
Instead, they’re 0-3.
More concerning for Bowles is that Tampa Bay’s problems extend well beyond Mayfield’s injury.
The Buccaneers have now lost 10 of their last 12 games dating to last season, as noted by Pewter Report.
That’s no longer a three-game slump.
It’s a trend.
And trends tend to get NFL coaches fired.
Baker Mayfield Could No Longer Cover Tampa Bay’s Problems
Mayfield has become one of the NFL’s great career reclamation stories.
Cleveland gave up on him. Carolina traded him. The Los Angeles Rams briefly gave him a home.
Tampa Bay gave him a career.
Mayfield responded by becoming a Pro Bowl-caliber quarterback and helping keep the Buccaneers relevant after Tom Brady’s retirement.
He also gave Bowles something every head coach desperately needs: a quarterback capable of covering up problems elsewhere.
That option is temporarily gone.
Mayfield’s injury means Bowles doesn’t merely need Daniels to survive.
He needs the rest of his football team to get better immediately.
The defense has to carry more weight. The running game has to become dependable. The offensive line can’t continually put the quarterback in difficult situations. Special teams can’t give games away.
And Bowles can’t afford coaching mistakes.
Not anymore.
Daniels isn’t some veteran backup being asked to keep the Buccaneers afloat for a month.
He’s an undrafted rookie.
The former Kansas quarterback spent six seasons in college and showed considerable athletic ability, passing for 9,184 yards and rushing for another 2,722 during his Jayhawks career.
Now he’s being asked to run an NFL offense for a team whose season could begin slipping away before Mayfield is healthy enough to return.
That’s an enormous ask.
It’s also exactly the kind of situation in which coaching matters most.
Bowles and his offensive staff don’t need Daniels to become Mayfield.
They need to build an offense he can operate.
If Tampa Bay can run the football, protect him and manufacture manageable third downs, Daniels has enough experience and athleticism to give the Buccaneers a chance.
If the plan is to simply drop an undrafted rookie into Mayfield’s offense and hope for the best?
Good luck.
Todd Bowles Was Already Facing Questions
This is where Mayfield’s injury becomes particularly dangerous for Bowles.
The questions about his future didn’t begin when Mayfield hurt his thumb.
They were already there.
Following Tampa Bay’s winless start, speculation about Bowles’ job security has intensified, including discussion this week about how quickly ownership could consider making a change if the season continues deteriorating, according to Yahoo Sports.
That doesn’t mean Bowles is getting fired tomorrow.
Nor should it.
NFL teams generally don’t make decisions about established head coaches after three games.
But ownership also doesn’t evaluate those three games in isolation.
Bowles’ Buccaneers have lost 10 of 12.
Now they’re 0-3.
And the quarterback who helped stabilize the franchise is unavailable.
If Tampa Bay is 0-5 or 1-5 when Mayfield is preparing to return, the conversation will be very different.
There Is No Good Excuse Coming
Here’s the difficult part for Bowles.
Mayfield’s injury is a perfectly legitimate explanation if Tampa Bay struggles over the next few weeks.
It might not be enough to save the coach.
Owners don’t have to decide whether a losing season was fair.
They have to decide whether they believe the coach is still the person capable of leading the franchise forward.
If Tampa Bay’s season completely collapses without Mayfield, the Glazer family will eventually have to ask that question.
And there is another uncomfortable possibility looming.
What happens if the Buccaneers keep losing?
An 0-3 start puts Tampa Bay in the early conversation for one of the highest selections in the 2027 NFL Draft.
That could create some fascinating questions considering the organization just handed Mayfield $165 million.
But those are questions for another day.
Bowles has a much more immediate one.
Can he win without Baker Mayfield?
This Could Be the Stretch That Decides Todd Bowles’ Future
Sometimes an NFL coach gets judged by what happens when everything goes right.
Bowles may be judged by what happens when everything has gone wrong.
His team hasn’t won.
His starting quarterback is hurt.
An undrafted rookie may now have to save the season.
And the losses have been accumulating since long before Mayfield injured his thumb.
Nobody should expect Daniels to suddenly turn into an elite NFL quarterback.
But Tampa Bay does have to look organized. It has to compete. It has to stop finding ways to lose.
Most importantly, it has to start winning football games.
Because Mayfield should eventually return.
By the time he does, the Buccaneers’ season could already be gone.
If that happens, Baker Mayfield’s thumb won’t be the only thing Tampa Bay ownership will be evaluating.
Todd Bowles’ future will be, too.
Gary Adornato is a veteran sports media executive, publisher and journalist with more than four decades of experience in … More about Gary Adornato