What Baker Mayfield needed the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to do on Sunday and what ended up happening couldn't have been more different. Earlier in the week Mayfield implored the team to not come out of the bye week flat, which is exactly what happened against the Patriots.
Rather than ride a hot start to the game, one that saw the Bucs score with relative ease on the opening drive, Tampa Bay wasted all of its momentum and dug a hole it couldn't climb out of. It's been an unhelpful pattern so far this year, and it resulted once again in the Bucs not measuring up in a game where the team could have made a statement.