Bucs’ Big-Money Players Have Been Big Disappointments In 0-2 Start

The Bucs are 0-2 for the first time in more than a decade, and it’s looked ugly.

The 2026 season began with a 33-27 loss at Cincinnati, and that was a game that saw the offense turn the ball over four times and the defense struggle to generate much of anything in the way of pass rush. Then, in Week 2, Tampa Bay returned to Raymond James Stadium for the perfect get-right game against a bad Cleveland team. The result, though? The Bucs stumbled their way into a 23-19 loss.

Just like that, this team is 0-2.

And make no mistake about it: The Bucs’ big-money players have been big disappointments through two weeks of the 2026 season and stand out as a major reason why this team is where it is right now.

Baker Mayfield Isn’t Quieting Questions About His $55 Million Price Tag

It looked for a while like the Bucs might be content to let quarterback Baker Mayfield play out the final year of the three-year, $100 million contract he signed after the 2023 season. For his part, Mayfield was clear at the start of training camp about his frustrations with the organization and its handling of the negotiations. He also had a bold warning for the team, saying the price tag was only going to go up after he put up a big year in 2026.

Ultimately, the Bucs did circle back and ink Mayfield to a three-year, $165 million contract just ahead of Week 1. Right away, opinion was relatively split. Was Baker Mayfield worth $55 million per year? Should he be on par with the likes of Matthew Stafford, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Jordan Love and Trevor Lawrence? Some argued yes, plenty others argued no.

Through two weeks, Mayfield has done very little to prove his $55 million price tag was worth it for the Buccaneers. He fumbled the ball away three times in Week 1, ultimately costing his team the game. 

Then, after all the buildup to a home opener in which he would be facing his former team, the struggling Cleveland Browns, he was wildly off the mark far too frequently in a performance that saw him finish 21-of-34 for 182 yards, a touchdown and an interception. The Bucs lost 23-19, and it was Mayfield and the offense’s struggles – especially in the red zone – that loomed large.

Through two games this season, Mayfield has completed 71% of his passes for 398 yards, a touchdown and an interception. He also has a rushing touchdown, but when you factor in his three fumbles in Week 1, he has two total touchdowns to four total turnovers.

There’s plenty of time for Mayfield to turn this around and ultimately live up to that big-money contract, sure. But the narratives were already out there that this was a bad contract, and turnover after turnover and loss after loss will only make those narratives stronger. The criticism will grow louder, and the patience from the Buccaneer fan base will grow thinner.

You could already here some disgruntled fans at Raymond James Stadium during Sunday’s loss to the Browns. There were boos when the offense continuously came up short, and then as Mayfield walked off the field after the clock hit zeroes, you could hear that $55 million price tag being shouted at him.

That’s a tough place to be after so boldly going after the organization in the media in July. It’s not a good place to be two weeks after getting rewarded with that big contract, either.

Big-money Baker Mayfield has been a big disappointment through two weeks, and he has to turn it around fast before things get out of control.

Vita Vea Has Been Invisible In The Middle Of The Bucs Defense

The other big, public contract dispute this summer for the Buccaneers was with veteran nose tackle Vita Vea. Tampa Bay’s 2018 first-round pick wanted a pay raise – with an extension – ahead of the 2026 season rather than playing out the final year of his contract.

The pay raise felt warranted when you consider the market and how much it has exploded for defensive tackles since Vea signed his previous contract. But it felt like Tampa Bay adding time to Vea’s contract was risky at best considering he’s 31 years old and playing a position that’s so physically demanding.

Vea was a hold-in for much of training camp and even requested a trade to further get his point across. There was little movement on the negotiations for a while, but in the end, the Bucs also rewarded Vea with a raise and another year, signing him through 2027.

So, where has Vita Vea been through the first two weeks of the 2026 season? He was a non-factor against the Bengals in Week 1, as he was credited with one pressure but was otherwise pushed around as Tampa Bay’s defensive line failed to register much of anything in terms of pass rush or run defense.

Then, in Week 2, Vea was held without a pressure and registered two assisted tackles on the stat sheet. The run defense fared better against Cleveland than it did in the opener at Cincinnati, but did the Bucs add $6 million to Vea’s 2025 money and lock him in for another $24 million in 2027 for him to just be a small part of the run defense efforts? Hardly.

Like with Mayfield, there’s time for Vea to get it together and return to being the disruptive force he’s been for so much of his career. There’s the added context that he signed that extension so late in camp that he didn’t have much of a camp and didn’t have a preseason, so perhaps a slow start was to be expected. Then again, there’s no one to blame for the shortened camp except himself. He did what he had to do for the negotiations, sure, but there’s no reasonable expectation for grace when you hold in, sign a new extension and then start the season slow.

The Bucs Need More From Baker Mayfield, Vita Vea And Others

Is it solely Baker Mayfield and Vita Vea who are responsible for the Bucs’ disappointing 0-2 start? Of course not. There’s plenty of blame to go around for this start. There are even other big-money players who are responsible for these back-to-back losing efforts, with $8.5 million-per-year inside linebacker Alex Anzalone certainly being one of them.

Tristan Wirfs and Luke Goedeke, Tampa Bay’s third- and fourth-highest paid players by average per year haven’t been at their best either, nor has $21 million safety Antoine Winfield Jr.

But it’s a fact that Mayfield and Vea’s contract situations loomed large throughout camp and both players were ultimately rewarded with what they wanted, and now they’ve both come out flat to start this 2026 campaign. These are the two Buccaneers with massive price tags. Both players are captains. And both players need to be better.

It has to start in Week 3, when Tampa Bay hosts 2-0 Minnesota at Raymond James Stadium. Teams that start 0-2 don’t have a great track record of making the playoffs. Teams that start 0-3? The Texans may have bucked the trend last year and made a strong enough recovery to make it, but they still stand as more of an outlier than the norm.

If the Bucs fall to 0-3 or this season ultimately spirals into further disaster as it goes on, the fan base will likely get what it wants with the firing of head coach Todd Bowles. But once he’s out of the picture, these big-money Bucs stand to be next in the line of fire.

This team needs to figure it out after hitting a new low in Week 2. And Mayfield and Vea are two of the guys who need to pick everyone up and steer the ship in the right direction toward a resurgence.