Finding a Way – Rakim Jarrett was about a yard out of the back of the end zone last Sunday when he caught Baker Mayfield’s Hail Mary attempt at the end of the aforementioned five-point loss to the Falcons. The Bucs had rallied from a 31-14 deficit but couldn’t quite make it all the way back. In their first game against the Falcons, in Atlanta in Week Five, Tampa Bay’s defense needed one more defensive stop in the closing seconds to finish out a 30-27 win but didn’t get it, eventually losing in overtime. The Buccaneers have one of the NFL’s highest-scoring offenses and playmakers at every level of their defense, and they’ve shown the ability to beat contending teams with wins over the Lions and Eagles, but they aren’t consistently getting the plays they need at the end of close games, particularly on defense. “What’s not happening is we have about four or five plays a game where we either miss a tackle or we’re not dropping where we’re supposed to and we give up a big play,” said Head Coach Todd Bowles of the Bucs’ defense. “You go back to basics. As coaches, you always go back to basics, fundamentals, and technique, and you start there. You start there, and you see what you did well [in] the first couple games of the season and you try to go back to that and see how far away you’ve gotten from it as a coach and as a player and try to get back to basics and doing things we do well.”
Flight Restrictions – Tampa Bay’s pass defense is ranked 29th in the league, allowing an average of 255.4 yards per game after giving up 276 and four touchdowns to Kirk Cousins on Sunday. So maybe it’s not the best time to be facing the most feared quarterback of his generation. This isn’t the most explosive offense ever assembled around Patrick Mahomes – he averaged nearly 37 touchdown passes per season from 2018-23 but is on pace for 19 in 2024 – and as such the Chiefs’ passing attack is averaging “just” 225.9 yards per game, good for 12th in the NFL. However, it recently added former Titan DeAndre Hopkins in a trade and he made his Kansas City debut last week with two catches for 29 yards. Perhaps more importantly for the Chiefs, tight end Travis Kelce had his most productive game of the season, catching 10 passes for 90 yards and one touchdown. The Buccaneers’ pass defense has had some communication problems in recent weeks, leading to holes in zone schemes that opposing passers have been able to exploit. On the ground, the Chiefs are averaging 3.92 yards per carry, 28th in the league, and with Vita Vea and Calijah Kancey now together in the middle of the Bucs’ defensive front Tampa Bay should be up to the challenge against Kansas City’s run game. They will need to show they can tighten up the pass defense, however, in order to keep the Chiefs in check on Monday night.
Knock Them Off Their Pedestal – In facing the league’s last undefeated team, the Buccaneers will be looking to add to a short list of specific accomplishments in franchise history. In 1998, the Minnesota Vikings came to Tampa with a 7-0 record to play a Buccaneers team that was scuffling along at 3-4. Minnesota had an explosive offense led by Randy Moss and had outscored their first seven opponents by a league-best 125 points. The Buccaneers, however, played spoiler, beating the Vikings 27-24. That would prove to be the only loss of the regular season for Minnesota. That marked one of just two teams that the Buccaneers have beaten an undefeated team that had at least seven wins. The other such occurrence was also against the Vikings two years later, when that 7-0 team came to Florida to face a Tampa Bay team that had lost four in a row to fall to 3-4. This one wasn’t even close, as the Bucs sent Minnesota home with a 41-13 thrashing. On two other occasions, the Buccaneers beat 4-0 teams, against the Bears in 1989 and against the Packers during the 2020 season. That’s the whole list. Knocking off the 7-0 Chiefs could prove to be the same kind of boost the Bucs got after that win over the Vikings in 2000, as they would go on to win seven of their last nine. (For the record, the Bucs have faced teams that are 7-0 or better on three other occasions, all losses – against the 9-0 Packers in 2011, the 9-0 Saints in 2009 and the 9-0 49ers in 1990.)
Crowd Mentality – One of the Bucs’ most impressive wins of the first half of 2024 was the 20-16 decision in Detroit in Week Two. That’s the only loss for Detroit so far, and it was particularly impressive because the Bucs found a way to deal with a thunderous crowd at Ford Field. The Lions have a rabid fanbase, particularly since they started to find some winning ways in recent seasons, but they also have the advantage of an enclosed roof when they’re hoping for some noisy treatment of opposing offenses. Chiefs fans, meanwhile, famously create some of the loudest atmospheres in the NFL despite Arrowhead Stadium being an open-air venue. The Bucs also have a win this season inside the raucous Superdome, and their offense had little trouble putting up yards and points inside Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium in a Week Five loss. Still, the Arrowhead decibel levels will be part of the story on Monday night, and Tampa Bay’s offense needs to prepare well in order to deal with it. It’s no coincidence that the Chiefs are 28-9 at home in the regular season since 2020.
Last season, when Kansas City’s Hall of Fame-bound tight end Travis Kelce failed to hit 1,000 yards for the first time since 2016 and averaged a career-low 10.6 yards per reception, there were whispers that Father Time was finally catching up to the 34-year-old. Then the postseason rolled around and Kelce exploded, setting a personal best with 32 playoff receptions for 355 yards and three touchdowns in four games. So far, a similar pattern is unfolding in 2024, but much earlier than January. Kelce had just eight catches for 69 yards and no touchdowns through the Chiefs’ first three games, as second-year wideout Rashee Rice became Mahomes’ go-to target for underneath work and YAC setups. However, Kelce has caught at least seven passes for at least 70 yards in three of Kansas City’s last four games, culminating in last week’s 10-catch detonation, including his first touchdown of the season. Kelce obviously has an innate connection with Mahomes and he remains one of the league’s best at finding openings in a zone and catching the ball with room to pick up extra. Antoine Winfield Jr. will be one of the key Bucs in trying to keep Kelce in check. Winfield has excellent vision and instincts and reacts quickly to the football, so he hopefully can limit the tight end’s YAC opportunities.
Even with rookie Bucky Irving proving to be an electric runner week after week, pass-heavy scripts in recent games have kept White at the top of the food chain in the Bucs’ backfield. In last Sunday’s loss to Atlanta, White caught five passes for 38 yards and a touchdown, one week after he hauled in six for 71 and a pair of scores against Baltimore. White catches passes smoothly and is very fluid when he spots a crease in the open field. As the Bucs continue to look for ways to keep the offense moving in the absence of both Chris Godwin and Mike Evans, White and the Bucs’ other backs figure to see a lot of touches, as they did on their way to a combined 166 yards from scrimmage last Sunday. Reid ranks second behind linebacker Nick Bolton on the Chiefs’ defense in tackles, with 39, and a team-high 23 of those stops have come on passing plays. Reid was a third-round pick by the Texans in 2018, and after four promising seasons in Houston signed a lucrative three-year deal with Kansas City in 2022 to replace the departing Tyrann Mathieu. Reid is a tone-setter who wants to physically dominate opposing players, and he has helped Kansas City’s secondaries develop into one of the league’s best, even after the departures of Mathieu in 2022 and top cornerback L’Jarius Sneed this past offseason.
The Chiefs have been looking for answers at the offensive tackle position in recent years, not always with great results, but their interior line has been rock solid for years. One reason was the late second-round steal of Oklahoma’s Humphrey in the 2021 draft. Humphrey was a Pro Bowler by his second season, and he repeated that honor last year. Last year, the 6-4, 302-pound mauler allowed a pressure rate of just 3.5%, the lowest among all NFL centers with at least 300 pass-blocking reps, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. He was top two in that category in each of his first three seasons. Humphrey will be a key part of the Chiefs’ efforts to keep Vea from disrupting runs between the tackles and putting pressure on Mahomes from up the middle. Vea is a 350-pound presence who can occupy multiple blockers and snag a running back with one arm when he’s trying to dart by. Since the start of the 2023 season, the Bucs’ defense averages one yard fewer allowed per carry when Vea is on the field than when his off.
With Godwin and Evans out of the picture, it was McMillan, the rookie third-rounder, who played the most offensive snaps among the Bucs’ wideouts last Sunday. While he’s still adjusting to the NFL and working on his chemistry with Mayfield – a couple of potential big plays were left on the field between those two against Atlanta – McMillan is a smooth route-runner with reliable hands. He can operate in the slot or on the outside and he has good first-step acceleration and the ability to make some of the YAC plays the Bucs are missing without Godwin. McDuffie, a first-round draft pick in 2022, has emerged as the Chiefs top cornerback after the trade of Sneed to Tennessee, and the Chiefs sometimes use him to travel with the opposing team’s top receiver. With Evans and Godwin out, that probably won’t happen on Monday night, with the Chiefs likely to use the field/boundary deployment of their corners, putting McDuffie on the boundary side. McDuffie isn’t the biggest cornerback but he has a rugged playing style that is well-suited for playing press-man coverage. That’s a good thing, because the Chiefs press with their cornerbacks more than any other team in the NFL by a comfortable margin. McDuffie has been in press coverage on 62.5% of his snaps on the outside, the highest rate of any cornerback in the NFL.
