The free fall continues.

If any of you seriously believed that the Bucs defense was actually going to do its job after the offense tied the game inside the 2-minute warning, I want to buy whatever hopium you’re huffing.

Sunday’s 23-20 loss to the San Francisco 49ers just produced more of what we’ve largely seen in the last 6 weeks — an ill-prepared defense and cowardly game management decisions that sink an otherwise well-functioning offense.

What’s even more sad is that it’s not even a new issue, as one might recall this team went through the exact same arc last season. The 2023 version of the Bucs took advantage of a weak backend schedule to rebound, and now this year’s group will need to do the same — after the bye, they’ll have the weakest strength of schedule in the entire league.

Todd Bowles has two weeks to get his house in order. Injuries have played a role, but the philosophy and execution have been severely lacking and he needs to fix it. If he can’t, I’m not sure what’s meant to inspire confidence in upper management that a man who’s 16 games under .500 as a head coach is the real answer moving forward.

Let’s do shoutouts and get our little vacation.

Offensive Top Performer: RBs Bucky Irving and Rachaad White

Irving and White are arguably a top 5 one-two punch in the NFL, and they largely drove the offense once again.

Irving averaged 5.6 yards per carry, toting the rock 13 times for 73 yards and a touchdown. He added three catches for 14 yards and he continues to show that GM Jason Licht might have actually hit on a running back pick!

White ran less efficiently, averaging just 3.1 YPC on 10 carries, but he also led the team in receiving with 6 catches for 39 yards — including a touchdown and game-saving fourth-down conversion. (also a shout out to Baker Mayfield for stiff-arming Nick Bosa to make said play happen.)

The duo’s complementary skill sets have really taken the Bucs’ ground game into an echelon that it hasn’t seen in nearly a decade when Doug Martin roamed Raymond James Stadium.

Defensive Top Performer: DL Calijah Kancey

Again, not much to write home about here.

We can play the what-if game in various ways, but ultimately an incompetent kicking performance (save for the most important one) was the only factor that kept this defense from giving up 30+ points for the fifth time in the last six weeks. This is a terrible unit, one of the league’s worst with underperformers across all three levels.

Kancey wasn’t one of those Sunday, ticky-tack personal foul penalty aside.

He dominated throughout the contest, collecting 5 total tackles (2 for loss) to go along with a sack and forced fumble. It marked the third game this season he logged multiple TFLs, making him only one of 6 players in the league to do that. Remember, he missed the first five games with a calf injury.

If he can keep those legs healthy, he’ll be a disruptive presence for the Bucs for multiple years to come.

Special Teams Top Performer: P Trenton Gill

Woah! A decent game from the punter!

Gill actually looked competent the past couple weeks. He averaged 45.5 yards per kick on six punts with a long of 50, and he pinned two inside the 20. It would’ve been three if not for the perpetually terrible coverage unit.

He doesn’t need to be all-star, just put together consistently solid weeks like this one and the Bucs will be in a fine spot.