The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Chicago Bears met on Sunday night, and both head into a Week 10 bye. On Monday, Todd Bowles and Ben Johnson each spent their day-after news conferences on what to fix in the time off. For Bowles, whose team fell to 3-6 with the 27-24 loss, the list starts with Baker Mayfield and the passing game. Johnson’s Bears are 7-2 after four straight wins, but he said they will still pick apart a game with five turnovers.
Bowles: “We got to come to that quick”
Bowles was asked what the Bucs can do for Mayfield during the bye. He did not limit it to the quarterback. “That’s definitely one of the things we got to look at during the bye week,” he said. “Are we comfortable with the calls that we’re calling, that he’s comfortable calling and playing with? Are we doing the right things for him schematically, and then how his mechanics are and what he’s seeing on the field? And we got to come to a decision on that, and we got to come to that quick because it’s been a little bit of a challenge lately. And we got to make some changes there for the betterment of the team from a coaching and playing standpoint so we can move forward after the bye.”
Todd Bowles’ full Monday news conference. Video: Tampa Bay Buccaneers on YouTube.
Asked whether he expects to change offensive play callers during the bye, Bowles answered with one word: “No.” He listed what has to improve on offense, starting with turnovers, then pass protection and penalties after five false starts in Chicago. “I feel like we made progress and we regressed yesterday back to about a month ago,” he said. “You can’t have five false starts, starting first-and-15. What we’re asking them to do, we got to look at that from a coaching standpoint and a playing standpoint. And we got to hold on to the football as a receiver.”
He also gave Mayfield room on one second-quarter play, a deep shot to Emeka Egbuka in the end zone with Bucky Irving open underneath. “We always like to take the check-down if it’s there,” Bowles said. “But if you can’t see it or something’s happening in front of you and the play changes, so to speak, in your mind, you got to kind of take the best throw that you want to throw.”
Fewer carries for Bucky Irving
Irving is fourth in the NFL with 825 rushing yards and has 111 carries in the last five games. Bowles said that has to come down. “I think the bye week for him has come at a perfect time,” he said. “I think he’s tough and he’s handling everything right now, but I don’t know if he has the frame to keep up that type of workload. We’re going to have to take some of the carries off of him. And it’s hard to do because he’s playing such great football right now and he’s our bell cow. But we still got to be wary of trying to keep him upright the entire season.”
Rookie Ted Hurst, Egbuka and the receiver room
Rookie receiver Ted Hurst played one snap on Sunday, dropped a pass and did not return. “We think he can help us,” Bowles said. “I think he got off to a bad start, and then we kind of went with some other guys and we wanted to see what they could do.” He said Hurst is still learning “a lot of nuances in the offense,” but added: “We just got to give him the ball more. But he’s got to come down with some of the catches as well.”
On Egbuka, whose numbers have dropped since his fast start as a rookie in 2025, Bowles pointed first to health. “We got to get him upright and healthy so he can stay on the field. We got to design more plays for him,” he said. “When he started making plays, everybody started taking them away. But that’s no excuse. We still got to find ways to get him the ball.” Asked whether the Bucs have enough at receiver, he split his answer: “Chemistry-wise, I would say yes, we have enough firepower. Talent-wise, we’re probably not.”
Trade deadline: “Nothing imminent”
Bowles spoke a day before Tuesday’s trade deadline, which falls at 4 p.m. ET (11 p.m. Cairo). Asked whether Tampa Bay would buy or sell after the Falcons traded Jessie Bates III to Jacksonville, he said: “We’re listening. We’re looking at everything. So there’s no decisions to be made one way or the other, but if something falls across our plate, we’ll always look at it. Nothing imminent right now at this point.” Pressed on which way the Bucs lean, he said: “You’re listening to sell and you’re always listening to buy.”
On injuries, Bowles said it was too early to know how serious safety Antoine Winfield Jr.’s ankle injury is. He said outside linebacker Yaya Diaby, who was running last week, is more likely to be back for the November 22 game at Detroit than receiver Jalen McMillan, who had a knee procedure early on and is still dealing with pain.
Ben Johnson: “There’s a certain standard”
In Chicago, Johnson started his Monday news conference by praising Jaylon Johnson’s pick-six, Devin Bush, who he said “played one of his best games as a Chicago Bear,” and edge rusher Austin Booker. Then he explained why a four-game winning streak did not end the conversation. “There’s a certain standard that we want to hit week in and week out,” he said. “I think the good teams, even when they get victories, if they don’t hit those benchmarks, then that leaves some more to be desired, and I felt that from our crew, which is a good thing. I think that’s the next evolution of this team. Not just that we win, but the manner in which we play.”
Ben Johnson’s full Monday news conference. Video: Chicago Bears on YouTube.
On Caleb Williams’ four interceptions, Johnson said two came from coverage recognition and two from trying to avoid disaster. “I know he was trying to dirt or throw away a couple of those, and we just got to do a better job of getting that job done,” he said, crediting “a Todd Bowles defense” for making it hard. He also blamed himself for the offense’s mid-game slump. “We got out of a rhythm as an offense. As a play caller, I got to do a better job trying to get us back on track.” On the two middle interceptions, he said Chicago knew the pressures were coming: “We got to block it better.”
Johnson praised left tackle Theo Benedet for playing every snap through a shoulder injury that limited him in practice. “There’s going to be games over the course of the season where you’re not 100%, and yet we need you going out there and giving every little ounce you got,” he said. He said the staff’s bye-week self-scout will start with the run game. “There’s only been three of those nine where we’re averaging over four yards a carry, which simply in our terms is not good enough right now,” he said, adding that getting running back Kyle Monangai back from a toe injury that has cost him five games “is going to make us a better team, and certainly a better running game.”
On the trade deadline, Johnson said general manager Ryan Poles is “going through and seeing how we can improve this roster” and that the coordinators are talking with him every day. “We’ll see if there’s another move or two to be made or if we stand pat,” he said. “I feel really confident about the guys that we have in this locker room right now.”
What’s next
Both teams return in Week 11. The Bucs play at the Detroit Lions on Sunday, November 22, and the Bears come back from a bye that follows three straight prime-time games. For Sunday night’s game, see our Buccaneers-Bears recap and Todd Bowles’ postgame reaction.
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