Cleveland shows up in Tampa with a new coach, a traded-away superstar and no starting quarterback named. The Buccaneers just want to remember what a 6-2 start felt like.
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SUN SEP 20 · 1:00 PM ET
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Cleveland's offense will be run by whoever wins the summer-long staring contest between Deshaun Watson and Shedeur Sanders, a competition new head coach Todd Monken pointedly refused to settle even after mandatory minicamp wrapped. Tampa Bay's answer is simpler: it's Baker Mayfield again, for better or worse, with the Bucs betting there's more magic left from that 2025 6-2 start than horror from the finish that followed.
Cleveland is nursing camp bumps at cornerback (Denzel Ward, neck) and along the interior line (Mason Graham, lower leg), while lead back Quinshon Judkins is working through an ankle issue that coaches insist looks fine. Tampa Bay has its own list — Bucky Irving's shoulder and Vita Vea's minicamp hold-in among them — but the louder subplot in Tampa is off the field, where Mayfield and the front office remain apart on an extension with him entering the final year of his deal.
Both teams are further from the finish line than the fix line. The Browns are two years into consecutive losing seasons and just shipped out their best defensive player, Myles Garrett, to the Rams for Jared Verse and draft capital — a full teardown, not a tweak, after Garrett soured on the Monken hire. The Buccaneers already know their ceiling; the question is whether the same group that faded from 6-2 to an 8-9 miss can hold it together for four quarters this time around.
