Titans, Bucs are in rough patches
TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Buccaneers desperately need a victory.
So do the Tennessee Titans, who visit them Sunday afternoon at Raymond James Stadium.
At 3-5, both teams are off to frustrating starts that have coaches Todd Bowles and Mike Vrabel searching for answers to saving seasons that are gradually slipping away from clubs accustomed to contending for playoff berths.
The Bucs, one of three teams that have led the underwhelming NFC South Division this season, have lost four in a row, their longest skid since 2019. The Titans, at the bottom of the AFC South — they were the division’s back-to-back champs before stumbling last season — have dropped three of four since a 2-2 start and haven’t won a road game in nearly a year.
The latter isn’t necessarily comforting for Tampa Bay, which is 1-3 at home this season. The Bucs won three of four games to begin the schedule, but they have struggled at home as well as on the road while going 0-4 since their open date.
“I don’t care where we win,” Bowles said. “We just need to win a game.”
Said quarterback Baker Mayfield, the sixth-year pro in his fourth NFL stop: “There is a lot of ball left. We’re just through the halfway mark of the year.
We’ll learn a lot of lessons from these games that we’ve lost in a row, and we will be stronger for it.”
Tampa Bay’s hopes for salvaging the season are buoyed by the fact no one’s threatening to run away with the NFC South.
The Bucs won the division with a losing record in 2022. And despite wavering lately, they remain in close pursuit of the New Orleans Saints (5-4) and the Atlanta Falcons (4-5), the two rivals ahead of them in the standings. The Carolina Panthers (1-8) are solidly in the cellar.
Bowles is confident his team will rebound from faltering late in last weekend’s 39-37 loss to the Houston Texans, another AFC South opponent. C.J. Stroud threw for five touchdowns and a NFL rookie-record 470 yards, capping the performance by leading a 75-yard drive in the final 46 seconds for the victory.
“We play together and we stay together. We go through ups and downs together. We’re a close-knit group,” Bowles said. “There’s progress being made by the offense. There (was) progress being made by the defense. We’ve got to just play all together at the same time.”
The suddenly struggling Tampa Bay defense is facing another rookie quarterback this weekend as the Titans have turned to Will Levis to try to turn their season around.
The Titans are winless on the road this season, going 0-4 after losing their last three on the road a year ago. They haven’t won a game away from Nashville since last Nov. 17, a prime-time victory against the Green Bay Packers on a Thursday.
Their biggest problem this year, though, has been finding a way to score more than 16 points. That’s the most they’ve managed on the road this season, as well as their point totals in each of their past two road losses.
Tampa Bay has also had trouble scoring. Last week’s 37 points at Houston marked the team’s season high after being limited to 37 combined in losses to the Detroit Lions, Falcons and Buffalo Bills the previous three games.
Murray likely to return as Cardinals host Falcons
GLENDALE, Ariz. — If there was any doubt as to how much Kyler Murray means to the Arizona Cardinals, the past 14 games have eliminated it.
The two-time Pro Bowl selection is expected to return to game action for the first time in roughly 11 months when the Cardinals host the Falcons on Sunday. Murray, the quarterback Arizona selected with the No. 1 pick of the 2019 NFL draft, tore the ACL in his right knee during a game against the New England Patriots last Dec. 12.
Counting the game in which Murray was hurt, the Cardinals went 1-13 in his absence.
“In this league, it’s very hard to win,” Cardinals safety Budda Baker said. “And it’s definitely very hard to win without special players on the field, offense and defense.”
The Cardinals (1-8) hit rock bottom last week, losing to the Cleveland Browns 27-0 for their sixth straight setback and gaining just 58 total yards in the process. Arizona started rookie Clayton Tune at quarterback after Joshua Dobbs was dealt to the Minnesota Vikings at the trade deadline.
The Falcons have dropped five of their past seven games, including two winnable matchups over the past two weeks.
They lost 28-23 on the road to the Tennessee Titans on Oct. 29, then fell 31-28 to the visiting Vikings last Sunday — when Dobbs stepped in for an injured Jaren Hall and, despite not having taken a first-team snap in practice, led injury-plagued Minnesota to a victory.
“We’re not going to sugarcoat it,” Atlanta coach Arthur Smith said. “You can be frustrated. You can be mad. You’re going to feel all the emotions by it, but we have to go do something about it. As bad as it feels — nobody’s celebrating being 4-5 — but the reality is when you have perspective, after we get these corrections and assess everything, we do still control our own destiny. We have half a season.”