Our model expects Baker Mayfield to come back to earth, and it drops Tampa Bay far enough to raise eyebrows
Updated
Tampa Bay is the projection that fights hardest with the market, and it is worth being upfront about that from the start. When we ran the simulations, the Buccaneers came out at five wins, more than three below a market that still sees a division winner. That is a big gap, big enough that we flag it, and it comes down to one core belief in our model: that Baker Mayfield's 2025 touchdown production was a peak he will not repeat, and that without it the roster grades out as a bottom-third team on both sides of the ball.
The Mayfield regression is the whole argument. Our model projects him for 3,696 yards and 17 touchdowns, nearly identical yardage to last season but a steep drop from the 26 scores he threw in 2025. The simulation's read is that a 26-touchdown year on that volume was efficiency near the top of his range, and it prices him back toward his career norm. That single adjustment is what turns a division winner into a five-win team in our numbers, and it is the reason this projection carries a flag rather than a clean publish.
The receiving corps is good enough that the regression stings. Chris Godwin remains a reliable weapon at 86 catches, rookie Emeka Egbuka projects as an immediate contributor with 812 yards, and Jalen McMillan adds a third option. Bucky Irving is a promising young back. This is not a bad group of skill players, which is exactly why the projection is provocative. Our model is not saying Tampa Bay lacks talent. It is saying the quarterback's efficiency comes back to the pack and the offense as a whole grades in the bottom third at 27th once it does.
The defense does not provide a counterweight. Our grade slots the unit 24th, below average, and that is the other half of why this projection sits so low. Antoine Winfield Jr. is a genuine star at safety and Vita Vea anchors the interior, but around them the group is thin. Lavonte David is a beloved veteran late in his career, and the pass rush outside of Yaya Diaby is unproven. When we ran the season, Tampa Bay's defense could not consistently bail out an offense that had lost its efficiency edge, and the losses piled up.
The honest framing is that this is a bearish call our grades support in direction but not necessarily in magnitude. Both units grade in the bottom third, so a below-market projection is defensible on its face. What makes us flag it is the size of the drop from a team that just won its division. Three wins is a lot to take off a roster that returns its quarterback and its top weapons, and it rests almost entirely on the touchdown regression being as severe as our model expects. We publish the number and we tell you where the risk lives.
The division cuts against the projection, which is worth acknowledging. Tampa Bay gets six games against Atlanta, Carolina, and New Orleans, none of them powerhouses, and a team with this much skill talent should be able to win some of those regardless of quarterback efficiency. When we ran the simulations, the Buccaneers did steal a few division games, but the model kept finding a team that could not get enough stops or enough splash plays to string wins together once Mayfield's touchdown rate normalized.
The path to being wrong is clear and it is a strong one. If Mayfield holds his 2025 form, if the 26 touchdowns were a new baseline rather than a peak, the offense grades far better than 27th and Tampa Bay is right back to eight or nine wins and the market number. A quarterback playing the best football of his career with Godwin and a promising rookie is exactly the kind of situation that can make a bearish projection look foolish. That is the case against our number, and we take it seriously.
But our model's job is to price the most likely outcome, and its read is that Mayfield's efficiency regresses and the roster around him is not good enough to absorb it. When we ran the season, that combination produced a five-win team far more often than a division winner, and the grades on both units back the direction of the call. We flag the magnitude, we respect the talent at receiver, and we still land well under the market.
So the read on Tampa Bay is a team our model believes overachieved on the strength of a quarterback's career year, now due for a correction the roster cannot fully cushion. When we ran the simulations, the Buccaneers looked like a middling-to-poor team once the touchdown production came back to earth, and the five-win projection is the aggressive expression of that belief. We take the under, with a flag, because the gap with the market is real and the risk runs in one specific direction.
Watch Mayfield's touchdown rate above everything else. If he keeps finding the end zone at last year's clip, this projection is wrong and the market is right, and Tampa Bay is a playoff team in a soft division. If the scores dry up the way our model expects, five wins will look a lot less shocking by December. This is a single-variable projection as much as any in the league, and that variable is the quarterback's efficiency.
That is why the flag matters. A projection this far from the market, resting this heavily on one regression, deserves the caveat even as we stand behind the number. Our model saw a division winner and priced it as a team coming back to the pack, and the honest thing is to publish that read while telling you exactly which assumption would have to break for it to be wrong. On Mayfield's arm rests the whole season, and our model bet against the repeat.
