BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield stood at the podium of a nearly empty press conference room after losing to the Buffalo Bills 24-18 during a "Thursday Night Football" matchup and said: "Losing three in a row sucks. There's no way around that. It's just a s***ty feeling."
In the Bucs' first season since 2020 without retired quarterback Tom Brady they got off to a promising 3-1 start, but since their Week 5 bye, they are winless.
Granted, not many people gave the Bucs (3-4) a chance to win in Buffalo on a short week, but they had a chance to put themselves in the driver seat in the division when they hosted the Atlanta Falcons the week prior, and they just let it slip away. Falcons quarterback Desmond Ridder turned the ball over three times in the red zone, and Atlanta still came away with a 16-13 victory.
"Sometimes you lose and guys put their heads down, but that's not what you saw out there," defensive lineman Will Gholston said. "You saw guys out there fighting, giving everything they had and with that type of effort and that type of mindset, we'll be able to get this thing rolling right."
With the Falcons (4-4) also losing and the New Orleans Saints (4-4) winning in Week 8, the Bucs are still only half a game out of first place in the NFC South, but what has suddenly quelled the Bucs' momentum?
The Bucs' early success was predicated on takeaways, but they have only four during the losing streak and three came against the Falcons.
Throw in the 26 penalties they've had over the last three weeks on top of their ineffectiveness to move the ball, especially with their lack of a ground game (fourth worst entering Week 8), and it's easy to see why by the end of the night Thursday they were tied for 25th in points per game (17.3).
Right tackle Luke Goedeke, who had three false starts Thursday said, "It gets tough out there," with all of the crowd noise but said the penalties were "inexcusable." He said he doesn't believe the team's losing streak has anything to do with the recent uptick in pre-snap penalties, and had more to do with the opponent and the environment.
"The ones that just drive ya absolutely nuts are the pre-snap penalties -- those are the ones that you can really control," Mayfield said. "... The pre-snap stuff is inexcusable. We you have to get that fixed. Guys have to just be locked in."
Then there's receiver Mike Evans.
Up until the final three minutes against the Bills, when Evans caught a 24-yard touchdown, the Pro Bowler was a non-factor, which should never happen in an offense built around him and receiver Chris Godwin, as offensive coordinator Dave Canales has put it. Mayfield said it wasn't until they went hurry-up that the Bills stopped rolling coverage Evans' way.
When asked if the Bucs could rely on tempo more in the future to offset teams keying in on Evans, which is something they've utilized in the past, Bowles said, "There's always thought in doing tempo more, but when we did tempo more in the past, that's where a lot more penalties occurred. They're occurring without the tempo. We'll look into getting back into it."
And though the run game has struggled to get going, the Bucs came into Week 8 with a league-worst 63% run block win rate. Running back Rachaad White has shown over the last two weeks what a reliable pass-catcher he is and just how effective he can be in space. But he's been less of a factor as a rusher.
There's also the question of where all the bootlegs and rollouts have gone from Mayfield, a strength for him. Against the Bills, Mayfield didn't attempt one pass from outside the pocket. But the Bills, like the Detroit Lions in Week 6, blitzed Mayfield on 14 dropbacks. Teams appear to be doing a better job of squeezing the pocket and pressuring Mayfield so he doesn't have his escape lanes.
"We just have to put it all together," Mayfield said. "We have the fight, we have the preparation. I don't doubt what we're doing during the week. ... We just have to execute. It's just flat-out execution, being on the same page and doing it.
"You do your job and accountability breeds that responsibility. That's one of our mottos that we have in building. So we need to continue to have that be the message."
The defense is not without flaws either. While they've had statistically the best red zone defense in the league, they've been the worst on third down -- with a number of big plays given up crossing the middle of the field.
Also the Bucs have been very inconsistent on fourth downs this season. Just before halftime Thursday, the Bucs took a delay-of-game penalty on fourth-and-3 at the Buffalo 41-yard line that would have been a 59-yard field goal attempt for a kicker in Chase McLaughlin who made a 57-yarder earlier in the quarter.
"It was too much for a field goal," Bowles said. "We were gonna take a penalty there. And then we were sitting there going for it, but if we don't get it, they have a field goal in mind. And with a 17-10 ballgame at the time, we figured we'd come out and still have a ballgame instead of giving away the first half."
When asked if they were attempting to lure the Bills offsides, Bowles initially said, "No," but then said, "We sent [the field goal unit] out there to try to lure them offsides at the time, but then we got discombobulated communication-wise, so we just punted."
The Bucs will get some time to sort things out before their Week 9 matchup at the Houston Texans (1 p.m. ET, CBS) on Sunday.