John Romano: Time is running out for the Buccaneers defense to show up, make a stand

John Romano, Tampa Bay Times on Dec 10, 2025

Published in Football

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TAMPA, Fla. — This is bigger than stopping the Atlanta Falcons on Thursday night.

It’s more important than stopping Kirk Cousins or Bijan Robinson or Drake London.

For the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense, the real question is this:

Are they capable of stopping their own demise?

We are at the point of the season where Tampa Bay’s defense needs to step up and rescue an offense that has lost much of its offensive line, a great deal of its swag and any semblance of direction. Regrettably, there’s little evidence that this defense can pull it off.

Tell me, what do those 11 guys do well? The Bucs give up more passing yards than 26 other teams. The run defense is slipping. The scoreboard says this unit is giving up more points than any Tampa Bay team since 2019.

Asking them to save the season is like hoping McDonald’s will fix your cholesterol.

And yet, that’s where the Bucs are at today.

Maybe Mike Evans comes back this week. Maybe Jalen McMillan, too. Maybe Tristan Wirfs’ oblique is on the mend, and maybe Bucky Irving rediscovers his 2024 production.

Even so, Baker Mayfield’s knee/oblique/shoulder woes seem to have greatly reduced his effectiveness and losing both of his starting guards to injured reserve have not helped the situation. A high-powered offense was supposed to carry Tampa Bay deep into the postseason, but that no longer sounds feasible.

Which brings us back to putting faith in the defense’s revival.

It’s not as if the Bucs lack talent on that side of the ball. Antoine Winfield Jr. is one of the highest-paid safeties in the NFL. Vita Vea is a two-time Pro Bowl pick. Lavonte David has constructed a career worthy of Hall of Fame consideration.

And, still, the defense has been on the wrong side of despair for much of the season.

It’s grown so concerning that the front office threw its own version of a Hail Mary pass this week. How else would you describe the signing of Jason Pierre-Paul to the practice squad?

We’re talking about a pass rusher about to turn 37 who hasn’t registered a sack in the NFL in nearly three years. Do you know how many 37-year-olds have gotten a sack in the NFL since 2020? One. That would be Calais Campbell. And he didn’t spend a couple of seasons watching games on television.

Run game coordinator/outside linebackers coach Larry Foote suggested Tuesday that Pierre-Paul’s greatest impact could be the juice he brings into the locker room, which is at least a reasonable expectation. It’s also a stinging indictment of the lack of passion in the current defensive huddle.

It also points out the defense’s greatest weakness — the lack of an elite pass rusher.

The front office recognized this coming into the season, and sought to correct it through free agency. Haason Reddick had an impressive track record from 2020-23 and was willing to bet on himself with a fat one-year deal. At $14 million, Reddick is one of the 25 highest-paid edge rushers in the league.

His 1 1/2 sacks are 24th on that top-25 list.

The defense’s current standing is not totally unexpected. Two years ago, the Bucs were a top-10 until that gave up 20.5 points per game. The slippage began last year when they gave up 22.6. Today, they have fallen to 25.0 points a game.

So what went wrong? Lots of things.

The young, talented secondary that helped win Super Bowl 55 had to be remade after the salary cap and free agency came calling. Pierre-Paul and Shaquil Barrett lost their effectiveness as pass rushers going into their mid-30s, and their replacements in the draft (Joe Tryon-Shoyinka, Chris Braswell) failed to pan out.

Devin White briefly was a godsend as a No. 5 pick, but his usefulness dissipated in a hurry. David is still making tackles, but is not the game changer he was earlier in this career. That’s left a huge hole in the middle of the defense that opposing offensive coordinators have exploited in the passing game.

Add all of that up, along with the rash of injuries on offense, and you’ve got a 7-6 team that’s in danger of falling out of first place in the NFC South.

Head coach Todd Bowles described some of the issues on defense against the Saints on Sunday as “misfit” plays, which is a polite way of saying players were out of position. That’s concerning considering the defense is not overrun with rookies or new starters.

“They don’t happen every week, but when they do happen, it’s a misfit,” Bowles said. “It happened earlier this year, it happened in the middle of the year, and it happened (Sunday).”

The Bucs cannot afford those mistakes on Thursday against the Falcons. For that matter, they cannot afford them in any of the final four games.

The time has come for the defense to find itself and rescue a season.

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