{"id":1000562,"date":"2026-09-14T12:27:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T12:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1000562\/"},"modified":"2026-09-14T12:27:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T12:27:17","slug":"2-buccaneers-who-deserve-the-most-blame-after-week-1-loss-to-bengals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/1000562\/","title":{"rendered":"2 Buccaneers who deserve the most blame after Week 1 loss to Bengals"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers suffered a frustrating 33-27 loss against the Cincinnati Bengals to kick off the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

The Bucs seemingly did all they could to hand this game to the Bengals, with countless self-inflicted wounds including missed tackles, costly turnovers and boneheaded penalties.<\/p>\n

There are two Buccaneers in particular \u2014 both of whom happen to be veterans that wear the \u201cC\u201d on their chest \u2014 who deserve the brunt of the blame for Sunday’s loss<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Baker Mayfield and Alex Anzalone let the Tampa Bay Buccaneers down in Week 1Baker Mayfield<\/p>\n

Mayfield is the biggest reason why the Buccaneers lost on Sunday<\/a>. He lost three fumbles, including one inside the five-yard line. His three turnovers resulted in 17 points for the Bengals in a game Tampa Bay lost by only six points.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition to failing to protect the football, he also held onto the ball far too long, putting himself and his offensive line in precarious situations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mayfield was efficient in the pass game, completing over 80% of his passes for 216 yards, along with 30 rushing yards and a touchdown. He wasted a great day throwing the football with his reckless turnovers and ultimately cost his team the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mayfield stepped up as a leader and took responsibility for the loss postgame, stating that the loss was on him. The Buccaneers need their franchise quarterback to bounce back quickly.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay showed a lot of promise on both sides of the ball today, and if Mayfield can simply avoid turnovers, this could be a tough team to beat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alex Anzalone<\/p>\n

Alex Anzalone was brought in to replace Lavonte David \u2014 as much as someone could \u201creplace\u201d the franchise legend \u2014 as the seasoned veteran at the linebacker spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anzalone wears the green dot, and his teammates voted him a captain in his first season with the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re trusted in a leadership role for a young defense that is starting three rookies, you simply can\u2019t lay an egg the way Anzalone did in the season opener.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He seemed to have an issue with his cleats, or finding his footing on the turf, but Anzalone seemed to be on the ground more than he was involved in making plays. It looked like there was a slip and slide underneath him as he missed several tackles and blew his assignment, allowing a touchdown in coverage.<\/p>\n

He looked unplayable at times, but the Buccaneers don\u2019t really have any other viable options. Anzalone needs to get his feet under him \u2014 literally \u2014 and bounce back from this awful performance.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay is counting on the veteran to play a key role defensively this season, but his Week 1 performance is a sign of things to come, the Buccaneers could be in serious trouble at the inside linebacker spot. <\/p>\n

\"\"Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Buccaneers suffered a frustrating 33-27 loss against the Cincinnati Bengals to kick off the 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1000563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2053],"tags":[228,227,256,2296,7,6],"class_list":["post-1000562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cincinnati-bengals","tag-bengals","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-bengals","tag-cincinnatibengals","tag-football","tag-nfl"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117269394169788250","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1000562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1000563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1000562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1000562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1000562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}