The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will inaugurate their 2025 season against the Atlanta Falcons. The matchup, despite being an opening week clash, has the potential to carry a good amount of playoff implications. If previous seasons are any indication of what 2025 will look like, the Falcons and Bucs will be stride for stride down the stretch and tie-breakers will be a factor. Tampa Bay has finished atop the NFC South in each of the last four seasons and with the exception of 2021, Atlanta has been within
two games of that first place mark. Not only for the Buccaneers—Falcons rivalry will week one be important, but it will also be crucial for Tampa to get off to a good start. Under Todd Bowles, The Buccaneers have a history of starting off their seasons fast, slumping in the middle, and then finishing strong. With another new offensive coordinator, no Tristan Wirfs, injuries at wide receiver, and some new key pieces on defense, maintaining the fast start portion of that equation will need to be a priority.
“You play to win the game.”
-Herm Edwards
How can the Buccaneers win?
NFL football is the ultimate team sport and stars don’t just carry you to wins the way they can in other professional sports. Week one of the NFL season is always a little bit of a unicorn. Team’s don’t really know each other yet, they don’t even fully know themselves. Even more so than ever now, team’s tend to spend the first few games of each year testing the waters and feeling out the season. During that assessment period, there can be more ‘mano a mano’ type football than fans are liable to see later in the year. Team’s need their stars to rise up, be stars, and be the reason(s) that they win games.
The Buccaneers are a little beat up and will have some new faces featured, but Mike Evans remains the Buccaneers’ best (skill position) player. Evans is the guy— Has been and still is. When push comes to shove, if the game gets tight the ball is going to Mike Evans. Evans has scored four touchdowns in his last three season openers and found the end zone in all but one opener since 2020 (2021). Tampa Bay is lucky t0 swim in a large pool of stars— Above all those stars sits a legend and that legend is Mike Evans. In an early season divisional game, against a team that has given the Buccaneers trouble in recent memory, a few massive plays from Tampa’s WR1 could go a long way to securing the win.
“We should be the best in the league. We should be unstoppable. We should be number one in all the categories on the offensive side of the ball.”
-Michael Penix
How can the Buccaneers lose?
The Buccaneers losing comes down to the performance of a Falcon. For the most part, Michael Penix is an unknown. Penix was Atlanta’s first-round selection a year ago, but didn’t see legitimate playing time until December. Penix was inserted into a postseason race needing to win games to maintain the team’s footing in a tenuous playoff picture. Throughout the final three games of the season, Penix stacked three touchdowns, three picks, and over 700 yards. In a lot of ways 2025 is going to function as Michael Penix’s rookie season. Week one is not his ‘first game’ but it will be one of the first games where an NFL defensive play caller will have multiple games of film on Penix as a professional to attempt to diagnose tendencies and craft a gameplan against him. It will also be the first time Todd Bowles has the opportunity to match wits with a young quarterback he may be seeing a lot of in the future.
How Bowles chooses to attack Penix and how the young quarterback in turn responds will go a long way in determining this game and may also have some hangover effect in future matchups.
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