The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were feeling really good about themselves heading into Monday night against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Hosting the defending NFC champions, Tampa found itself at 2-0 heading in. Baker Mayfield was playing near-perfect football. The hope for head coach Todd Bowles and Co. was that this momentum would continue.
Not so much. Mayfield struggled big time in the face of a large amount of pressure from Philadelphia’s defense. While Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts wasn’t great (two interceptions), the likes of D’Andre Swift picked up the slack on the ground.
The end result was an 25-11 win for Philadelphia as the team joins the Miami Dolphins and San Francisco 49ers as the only three 3-0 squads in the NFL. Below, we check in on the winners and losers from this game as well as the top highlights.
Winner: Jalen Carter, Philadelphia Eagles
This former Georgia star is going to make teams that selected ahead of the Eagles at nine in the 2023 NFL Draft rue the day. We already knew how dominant he was in college. However, off-field and conditioning issues leading up to the annual event led to a fall down the board.
Through three weeks, Carter has shown that he might very well be the bast all-around player in the draft class. Just look at this chase-down forced fumble on Buccaneers running back Rachaad White.
Carter added two quarterback hits and shared a sack of Mayfield in the game. He’s been a monster through three games for Philadelphia. Nothing seems to be prepared to slow this defensive tackle down.
Related: NFL defense rankings heading into Week 4
Loser: Chris Godwin, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
With Darius Slay going up against Evans in this one, most figured that Chris Godwin would have a field day. After all, Tampa Bay was taking on an injury-plagued Eagles secondary.
For the third consecutive game to open the season, this did not come to fruition. The former Pro Bowler caught just 3-of-5 targets for 32 yards. Sure, a lot of this is on Mayfield. But Godwin had the matchup to do much more Monday night.
Winner: D’Andre Swift, Philadelphia Eagles
There is now very little question that Swift is RB1 in Philadelphia. Even with Kenneth Gainwell returning from injury Monday night, Swift got more touches (17) compared to his counterpart (15). After putting up a career-high 175 yards in last week’s win over the Minnesota Vikings, Swift continued to dominate against Tampa Bay.
Talk about a combination of speed and athleticism. This is the dynamic back we remember during his college days at Georgia and when Swift was healthy earlier in his career with the Detroit Lions. All said, the back tallied 130 rushing yards on 16 attempts in another banner performance. What an absolutely perfect fit in Philly’s offense.
Related: NFL power rankings heading into Week 4
Loser: Rachaad White, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Running the ball continued to be an issue for Tampa Bay on Monday night. It entered Week 3 averaging less than 97 rushing yards per game at a clip of 2.9 yards per. Mayfield’s performance and what we’ve seen from the Bucs’ defense enabled them to overcome that and start 2-0.
This was not the case against a superior Eagles team. White gained just 38 yards on 14 attempts while losing a fumble. Said fumble resulted in an Eagles field goal. Philly would then score a touchdown on its next possession to turn a one-score game into a 20-3 Bucs deficit. You just can’t have these types of game-changing performances for the negative.
Winner: A.J. Brown, Philadelphia Eagles
There was some ado heading into Monday night about the lack of talents Brown received last week against Minnesota (six). Brown downplayed it. Hurts downplayed it. For good reason. We knew that this would change against Tampa Bay. Boy, did it.
Brown was targeted a total of 14 times, catching nine passes for 131 yards in the process. It really is a great problem for the Eagles to have. As Brown did his thing, DeVonta Smith was held to four catches on five targets. Defenses pretty much have to pick their poison here.
Loser: Baker Mayfield, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Mayfield wasn’t necessarily terrible Monday night (15-of-25 passing, 146 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT). Instead, it was all about a lack of early accuracy. He missed multiple wide open receivers as the Bucs started this game with punts on their first three possessions. That span saw Mayfield complete a mere 3-of-6 passes for 28 yards.
Tampa doesn’t have the margin for error against an elite team to start out in this manner. Mayfield simply must be more crisp to open things. Whether that’s scripted play-calling or something else, we didn’t see this Monday night.
Final takeaway from Philadelphia Eagles win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers
A lot of the talk heading into Monday night’s game centered around the two teams Tampa Bay beat this season boasting a combined 0-6 record. Well, it’s clear that the Buccaneers are in no way up there with the top teams in the conference after Monday’s performance.
As for the Eagles, Monday’s win might not have been perfect. However, the team did just enough to keep pace with the San Francisco 49ers at 3-0 in the NFC heading into October. That’s pretty much all the Eagles could have asked for against a game Tampa Bay opponent on the road Monday night.