Bucs’ Loss To The Patriots Shouldn’t Move The Worry Needle

The Bucs got hit with a gut-wrenching loss at home to the Patriots, 28-23, coming off of a bye week. And because of that, over-reactions are in overdrive.

But this has all the earmarks of a one-off.

Bucs Were More Successful On A Play-to-Play Basis

The Bucs offense was the more sustainable than the Patriots on Sunday. The Buccaneers converted 24 of their 32 series starting with a first down into a new first down or a touchdown. The Patriots converted just 16 of their 23 such series. That’s a net success rate of +5.4%. Tampa Bay also won the success rate battle on a per play basis 49% to 38%.

Bucs QB Baker Mayfield – Photo by: USA Today

Putting this into the context of the game, the Bucs had 34 of 69 plays on offense that netted a positive result. The Patriots only mustered 23 such plays on 60 chances. The Bucs defense held the Patriots offense to just five third-down conversions on 13 tries while also forcing a turnover on third-and-goal at the Tampa Bay 2 on Tykee Smith’s diving interception. The Bucs offense was marginally better on third down (5-of-13) and did not turn the ball over.

Teams that win the net play success rate, net series success rate, net third down conversion rate and net turnover differential battle win the game an inordinate amount of the time. It just didn’t happen this time.

Explosive Plays Killed The Bucs Defense

The difference in this game came down to explosive plays. Both teams hit six explosives, defined as a run play of 10+ yards or a pass play of 20+. The Bucs had runs of 11, 12 and 18 yards, and passes of 24, 21, 31 and 21 yards. The Patriots hit passing explosives of 72, 26 and 54 yards and running explosives of 16, 55 and 69 yards.

Bucs FS Antoine Winfield Jr. and Patriots RB TreVeyon Henderson – Photo by: USA Today

On non-explosives Tampa Bay out-gained New England 251 yards to 143, and 4.2 yards per play to 2.7. But the Bucs lost the explosive battle, 292 yards to 120 yards, and 48.9 yards per play to 20.0 yards per play. The Patriots scored on three of their explosives to the Bucs’ zero scores on their explosives.

Comparing that to the entire season these are outlier performances for Tampa Bay.

The Buccaneers have allowed an average of 137 yards per game via explosives compared to 142 gained from such plays by their own offense. Giving up over double their season-long average isn’t likely to be a repeatable concern in upcoming games.

Lots To Look Forward To

On offense, the Bucs had a solid running game for the first time in several weeks. They averaged 5.4 yards per carry against the league’s top-ranked rushing defense, as New England was allowing just 75.3 yards per game on the ground.

Second-year center Graham Barton had his best game of the year and took his first real step forward in his assigned position. Offensive coordinator Josh Grizzard had several drives where his play-calling was layered and married, and where he featured multiple players in the offense.

Designed touches to Sterling Shepard worked early. Cade Otton feasted working underneath. Emeka Egbuka continued to exploit the intermediate-to-deep area of the field. Tez Johnson is proving to be a reliable secondary target and a red zone weapon.

Right tackle Luke Goedeke returned and immediately the Bucs pass protection improved.

The Bucs’ pass rush created pressure on 47% of Drake Maye’s dropbacks. They only got home on one of those 17 pressures, according to Next Gen Stats. But as they have shown this season, sacks are not a linear expectation on a game-to-game basis, but they stabilize over larger sample sizes.

Bucs DT Vita Vea and Patriots QB Drake Maye – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

If the defense can continue to generate pressure at this extremely high rate, the sacks will come. That bore out earlier this season and will again later.

A 47% pressure rate with just one sack is insane. Trust that the sacks will come going forward for the Bucs defense.

Forced Maye to a 31% completion rate when pressured. Somehow still a ridiculous 12.8 yds/attempt.

Good process. Outlier result. pic.twitter.com/ljpArrHHzy

— Josh Queipo (@JoshQueipo_NFL) November 9, 2025

The starting secondary looked good throughout most of the game. Zyon McCollum gave up one bad play to Mack Hollins on a 54-yard strike on third-and-14 late in the game. Tykee Smith’s end zone interception erased that negative.

Smith and safety Antoine Winfield Jr. and cornerbacks Jamel Dean and Jacob Parrish all played extremely well in coverage. The Bucs linebackers looked better. The defense is poised to be one of the better units down the stretch.

The loss stings.

Mostly because by all expected forms of analysis, the Bucs should have won this game. But the go-forward takeaways from Sunday are far more positive than they are negative.

Oh… and the Panthers and Falcons both lost, so the Buccaneers didn’t lose any ground in the NFC South race.