Houston has won two straight AFC South titles since using the second-overall pick in the 2023 draft on Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud. The Texans opened the playoffs last season with a blowout 32-12 win over the Los Angeles Chargers before falling to the top-seeded Kansas City Chiefs in the divisional round. While Stroud didn’t necessarily take a huge step forward from his stunning 2023 rookie campaign, the Texans have since poured resources into fixing a leaky offensive line and adding multiple new pass-catchers around him. Houston also had the league’s sixth-best defense in 2024, led by a ferocious pass rush centered around Will Anderson and Danielle Hunter. The Buccaneers will be looking for their first-ever regular-season win in Houston.<\/p>\n
The Buccaneers and Lions have put together an entertaining series of games since both teams transitioned into new chapters led by former number-one overall draft picks Baker Mayfield and Jared Goff at quarterback. Detroit beat Tampa Bay twice in 2023, including a tight Divisional Round-contest in the 2023 playoffs that ended in a 31-23 decision for the home team at Ford Field. The following September, the Buccaneers went back to the Motor City in Week Two and came away with a bit of revenge in a 20-16 victory. The Lions lost both of their coordinators (Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn) to head coaching jobs elsewhere in 2025 but are getting back pass-rushing superstar Aidan Hutchinson after an injury that cost him most of last season.<\/p>\n
The Bucs and Rams have also met frequently in recent seasons in a rivalry that spans both the regular season and the postseason. Most notably, the Rams came to Tampa in the Divisional Round of the 2021 playoffs and ended the Buccaneers’ shot at a Super Bowl repeat with a wild 31-23 win. As with the Lions-Bucs matchup, this one will also feature two former first-overall quarterback picks, as veteran Matthew Stafford signed a new deal in the offseason to stay in L.A. The result could be a lot of prime-time fireworks; the Buccaneers added first-round receiver Emeka Egbuka to the NFL’s third-ranked passing attack while Stafford now has Davante Adams to go with Puka Nacua in his arsenal.<\/p>\n
The Buccaneers’ Thursday night game at home against Atlanta in Week 15 will be a rematch of whatever outcome the two teams construct in the season opener in Georgia. This will also be the second straight season the two teams have met on a Thursday, after last year’s Week Six contest at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The Buccaneers took a 30-27 lead on Chase McLaughlin’s 53-yard field goal but Atlanta’s Younghoe Koo tied it with a 52-yarder as time expired and the Falcons won in overtime. Notably, Kirk Cousins threw for over 500 yards in that game but is now the backup to second-year passer Michael Penix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston has won two straight AFC South titles since using the second-overall pick in the 2023 draft on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2077],"tags":[211,198,7,6,16133,704,250,2597,2596],"class_list":{"0":"post-61332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","8":"tag-buccaneers","9":"tag-featured","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-nfl","12":"tag-schedule-2025","13":"tag-tampa-bay","14":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","15":"tag-tampabay","16":"tag-tampabaybuccaneers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114532209551562452","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61332","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=61332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}