The Tampa Bay Buccaneers did not have the best defensive outing in 2025. That's unfortunate, given that their head coach is a defensive head coach. Tampa Bay's initial defensive stats don't look awful.

Bowles’ choices didn’t ultimately doom the Buccaneers since they scored a touchdown on that final first half sequence and Washington could have bled the clock dry on the final drive regardless of timeouts, but Bowles did not put his team in the best position to succeed by letting clock run.