The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' 2025 season officially came to an end on Sunday, less than 24 hours after they had concluded their own schedule with a 16-14 victory over the Carolina Panthers. That win created an unusual situation in which the outcome of the New Orleans-at-Atlanta game on Sunday would decide the NFC South champion, and when the Falcons won, the title went to the Panthers. As such, the Buccaneers, outside the playoff field for the first time since 2019, now turn their attention to the 2026 offseason.
Featured prominently in that is the NFL Draft, in which the Buccaneers are slotted to pick 15th overall in the first round. If they remain in that spot, it will be the highest the team has drafted since taking All-Pro tackle Tristan Wirfs with the 13th overall selection in 2020.
The first 18 spots in the first round of the draft were set in place at the end of the regular season on Sunday, with all of the teams eliminated from the playoffs learning their places in the order. The Las Vegas Raiders, one of four teams to finish with a 3-14 record, will pick first. The New York Jets, Arizona Cardinals, Tennessee Titans and New York Giants round out the top five.
Tampa Bay finished the regular season at 8-9, as did four other teams. One of those other four clubs, the Panthers, is in the playoffs and will thus be picking later in the round. The other three are the Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens and Indianapolis Colts. To determine the first-round order among those tied teams, the league turned to strength of schedule (SOS), which is measured by the combined win-loss percentage of all the opponents a team faced in the just-concluded season. The team with the lowest SOS gets the highest pick among those tied teams, and so on.
The Falcons had the lowest SOS figure (.495) and thus got landed the 13th pick in the first round, though that selection was actually traded to the Rams during last year's draft. The Ravens' SOS was .507 and they will pick 14, followed by the Bucs, whose SOS was .529. The Colts round out the foursome with a .540 SOS and the 16th pick, although their first-round selection belongs to the Jets.
Throughout the remainder of the draft, those four teams in a tied segment will rotate in the order from picks 13-16 in each round. The team that picked first in that segment will move to the back of the list, with the other three teams moving up a slot. Thus, the Bucs have the 14th pick in the second round, which would be number 46 overall. In the third round, they will pick 13th, or 77th overall, and so on.
The Buccaneers currently hold their own picks in each of the seven rounds and no others. The full seven-round draft order will be finalized later in February when compensatory picks are announced.
If Tampa Bay remains in its current slot in the first round, it will mark the third time in team history that it made the 15th overall pick in the draft. The Bucs selected LSU defensive tackle Anthony McFarland at that spot in 1999, then went back to LSU's roster again in 2004 to nab wide receiver Michael Clayton at number 15.
