Bengals vs. Buccaneers: Everything You Need to Know for Week 1

The 2026 season is here and expectations couldn't be higher for this Bengals squad. Joe Burrow is talking about a championship mindset, urging others to follow and, boy, we are ready to follow as Bengals fans.

Things haven't gone our way in recent years, but when the franchise quarterback locks in like this, you'd have to be made of stone to not feel SOMETHING.

The Bengals season kicks off against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs enjoyed four-straight NFC South championship seasons before things came crashing down HARD last year after a 6-2 start.

It wasn't all because of injuries, the Bucs just stunk in 2025.

Struggles in Tampa Bay

Let's start with newly extended quarterback Baker Mayfield.

Over their final 11 games, when the Buccaneers started slipping, Mayfield was one of the worst quarterbacks in the entire NFL. According to Pro Football Focus, Mayfield graded as the 31st best QB over that span. That ranked only ahead of Browns QB Shadeur Sanders.

Over that stretch, Mayfield threw 14 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He averaged 6.2 yards per attempt and had a passer rating of 80.6. For comparison, Joe Burrow was PFF’s 2nd highest graded QB over that timeframe. He threw for 15 touchdowns, 5 interceptions, averaged 7.3 yards per attempt and had a passer rating of 102.2 – all while wearing a carbon fiber plate in his cleat.

What really separates these two quarterbacks is how they dealt with pressure where Baker Mayfield earned a 33.4 PFF grade when under pressure and Joe Burrow scored a second-best 72.9 grade when pressured by the defense.

One of the Buccaneers' biggest offensive issues was their production against Man Coverage.

DJ Turner's Specialty

Mayfield was at the center of their struggles again. He was the third-worst quarterback in the league when facing Man Coverage according to DVOA (-20.1%).

Well, the Bengals defense dropped into Man Coverage at the 11th highest rate in the league last season under defensive coordinator Al Golden.

As the Bucs look for their replacement for Mike Evans, you'd immediately look at Emeka Egbuka as a standout rookie ready to take that second-year leap, but he also struggled against Man Coverage. Egbuka was good vs Zone Coverage where he averaged 2.2 yards per route run (YPRR) but against Man Coverage, Egbuka averaged just 0.7 yards per route run and earned a 57.7 PFF grade vs Man Coverage. That grade ranked him 84th in the league at wide receiver and that YPRR production gap was the third-largest of any receiver in the league last season.

For the Bengals, DJ Turner is a Man Coverage STAR. His 0.7 yards per coverage snap allowed in Man Coverage ranked him second-best in the entire NFL at cornerback. I'm going to bet he's trailing Egbuka for most of this game.

Mayfield and the Bucs also struggled against the blitz. He completed just 53.3% of his passes (4th lowest rate) and averaged 5.8 yards per attempt (3rd lowest) vs the blitz. Their 39.3% success rate against extra rushers ranked third-worst in the league. The Bengals don't blitz often, but when they did in 2025, they were effective. Cincinnati generated pressure at an impressive rate of 45.8% on all blitzes and allowed only 55.1% of passes to be completed – good for third-best in the NFL.

Some of that is because their lead back, Bucky Irving, isn't great in pass protection. His 22.6 PFF Pass Blocking Grade was second-worst in the league.

Irving can be elusive, but he only averaged 2.36 AFTER contact – the worst YAC of all starting runners. And he's not explosive with only 13.4% of his yardage on the ground coming from 15+ yard runs – that's the second-lowest rate in the league.

And then you have Center Graham Barton entering his third season. He'll have a challenge going against Bengals centerpiece Dexter Lawrence.

Barton had a 50.0 PFF grade in True Pass Sets last season. That ranked 26th amongst NFL centers in pass protection. To his credit, he started the year playing offensive tackle because of injuries – but got absolutely demolished out there. Versatility is great, but the Buccaneers need Barton to have a good game against Lawrence and that's something he couldn't do in 2024 when they faced the Giants and Barton earned his second-worst run blocking grade (41.3) of his career.

But it's not all bad for the Bucs on offense. They also averaged 5.1 yards per play on offense. That was good for 25th best in the league. Which is probably why they hired new offensive coordinator Zac Robinson from the high-powered Atlanta Falcons offense.

On the bright side, the Buccaneers defense is led by the well-respected Todd Bowles.

A very stout run defense, the Bucs were pretty poor everywhere else. They ranked 22nd in EPA per play, 23rd in Pass Defense EPA per play and 28th in Run Defense EPA per play. Tampa Bay’s defense ranked 24th in Points Per Play allowed and 25th in Yards Per Play (5.7) allowed.

They're a HEAVY blitz team under Bowles and always have been. Since he's been the coach, the Bucs have blitzed on 37.7% of their plays – third-highest rate in the league.

Joe Burrow dices up the blitz. He always has, but last season, Burrow completed 71.4% of his passes against the blitz at 8.3 yards per attempt and had a passer rating of 122.6

He's even more productive when teams send extra rushers because of how quickly Burrow gets the ball out. Six of his eight touchdown passes vs the blitz came out in less than 2.5 seconds and other quarterbacks around the league got the ball out, on average, at 2.77 seconds vs the Bucs blitzes. Which was the fifth-fastest rate amongst NFL defenses.

Under Center?

The Bengals may not be asking Joe Burrow to sit back and decipher defenses as much this season. They've built-in a heavy amount of under-center play-action passing this offseason and the plan is to unleash it in 2026.

How did the Buccaneers do against play-action in 2025? Terrible, of course.

The Bucs allowed explosive plays off play-action at a league-WORST rate 27.7% of the time. They surrendered 9-yards per attempt off play-action for the second-worst ranking in the NFL.

Another key area where the Bengals offense may have a massive advantage is in the Red Zone.

Tampa Bay owned the league-worst defense at allowing Red Zone trips to be converted into touchdowns at a rate of 69.8%

The Bengals had the third-best Red Zone touchdown rate, scoring on 66.7% of their Red Zone opportunities.

Yes, I'm also licking my lips and rubbing my hands together at the thought of this.

The Bucs hope to have answers in the form of young players developing and returning to full health.

One of their young standouts is safety Tykee Smith. He earned an impressive 75.6 PFF grade in Man Coverage last season, but that's the player to target when the Bucs are in Zone. Smith scored a 45.3 PFF grade in Zone Coverage last season and that ranked 60th amongst safeties.

The departure of Jamel Dean should elevate Zyon McCollum into the top CB spot. He's 6’2” and has been solid since he's been in the league, but he's a bit streaky. When things started crashing for the Bucs, McCollum was one of the culprits. His 45.5 PFF grade from week 10 ranked him 66th in the league. For comparison, Dax Hill ranked 9th over this span with a 77.7 grade.

Maybe it'll be Jacob Parrish at CB1. I'm a big fan of his game even though he is 5’9¾” tall. With these tall weapons in Cincinnati, that could be a match up worth exploiting.

Parrish played the slot last season and could be the boundary CB in 2026 because the Bucs drafted Keionte Scott in the 4th round. He allowed 7 of 11 targets to be caught for 76 yards in the preseason. That could be a fun opportunity for Ja'Marr Chase in the slot.

And if the Bucs want to let Parrish follow Chase into the slot, maybe they'll let last year's 2nd round pick, Benjamin Morrison, play the boundary. He was one of the worst graded corners in the league in coverage and run defense last season. They'd need him to take a massive leap for 2026.

For all of these reasons, I like the Cincinnati Bengals to come out on top this week to open the 2026 season.

Who Dey!? Also, here's Kyle Dugger intercepting Baker Mayfield in 2021:

Kyle Dugger picking off Baker Mayfield ‼️

Patriots ran it down the Browns throat the very next play.

Get a turnover, make ‘em pay. Bill Belichick football. pic.twitter.com/Qgl6RplTpX
— Jordan Moore (@iJordanMoore) November 14, 2021

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