As the Tampa Bay Buccaneers hit their bye week in the middle of the 2026 season, they do so with the NFL's most productive rushing attack. At the center of that prolific ground game is Bucky Irving, who has rediscovered his brilliant 2024 rookie form and is fourth in the NFL with 825 rushing yards while leading the team with eight total touchdown. If one were voting for the Buccaneers' MVP through the first half of the season, Irving would be prominently featured in the debate.
However, the Buccaneers plan to use the bye week to examine exactly how they are utilizing their third-year back and if they potentially need to ease back a bit on his number of snaps and carries. Head Coach Todd Bowles has always espoused the hot hand approach when it comes to his backfield, but he also knows the greater goal is to keep his best offensive weapon healthy and productive for 17 games.
"I think the bye week for him has come at a perfect time," said Bowles of the 5-10, 195-pound Irving. "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 bellcow. But we've still got to be wary of trying to keep him upright the entire season."
The Bucs' ground game has been the vast majority of their offense during the last five weeks, as the team has gone 3-2 to get back into the NFC South race. Irving logged 111 carries during that span, making him the first Tampa Bay back with 110 or more carries in a five-game stretch since Doug Martin in 2013, and it's worth noting that Martin was limited to just six games due to injuries that year. Going hand in hand with easing back on Irving's workload is finding ways to breathe life back into a passing attack that at times over the last three years has been extremely dynamic but has struggled to find any consistent production this year. Baker Mayfield's 243 passing yards in Chicago on Sunday night represented a season high so far.
"That's definitely one of the things we have to look at during the bye week," said Bowles. "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? We've got to come to a decision on that and we've got to come to it quick because it's been a little bit of a challenge lately. We've 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."
Every team's coaching staff uses its bye week to self-scout and analyze what has happened to that point in the season, scouring through hours of game tape. The Irving workload discussion and Mayfield's comfort in the passing scheme are only part of what Bowles and his crew will be contemplating this week when it comes to the offense.
"Obviously the turnovers are number one but we've got to look at pass protection, we've got to look at the penalties," said Bowles. "The false starts are huge for us. I feel like we made progress then we regressed yesterday back to about a month ago. We can't have five false starts, starting first-and-15. That's number two of it. What we're asking them to do, we've got to look at that from a closing standpoint and a playing standpoint to see what we can do. We've got to hold onto the football as receivers. That's just to start out. Among many things, that's just to start out."
