Ian Hartitz presents the Tampa Bay Buccaneers team preview and fantasy football outlook for the 2025 NFL season.

The Bucs ripped off their fourth consecutive NFC South championship last season on the back of one of the league's most efficient overall offenses.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2024:

  • Points per game: 29.5 (4th)
  • EPA per dropback: +0.21 (5th)
  • EPA per rush: +0.01 (6th)
  • Points per game against: 22.6 (16th)

Unfortunately, the good times stopped rolling in the Wild Card round at the hands of Jayden Daniels and the Commanders, as some ill-timed fourth-quarter botched snap exchanges were ultimately too much for Baker Mayfield and Co. to overcome.

Good news: The Bucs somehow managed to return all 11 starters on offense, added stud first-round WR Emeka Egbuka, and the defense perhaps got enough reinforcements through free agency and the draft to improve upon last year's average performance. Replacing wunderkind OC Liam Coen isn't ideal, but Vegas still fully expects this group to be one of the highest-scoring units in football.

This brings us to today's goal: Answering key (mostly fantasy-related) questions about the Buccaneers ahead of their 2025 season.

As always: It's a great day to be great.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2025 Fantasy Football and Team Preview

Is Baker Mayfield still a value in 2025 drafts?

On the one hand, Mayfield's reinvention in Tampa Bay has been nothing short of spectacular. First in passing TDs (69) the past two years and fresh off the most efficient season of his career based on nearly any advanced metric you want to look at, it's clear that the rest of the NFL messed up by letting the former No. 1 overall pick make his way to the Buccaneers on a measly one-year, $4 million contract back in 2023.

On the other hand, parts of Mayfield's game from last season in particular scream regression. From a league-high 16 INTs, to an easy career-high mark in rushing yards per game (22.2): Mayfield's QB4 finish in 2024 was great and all, but it's worth wondering if chasing THAT level of fantasy excellence is a wise decision.

As Fantasy Life Director of Analytics Dwain McFarland noted in his regression breakdown: The passing TD rate in particular looks like a good bet to go down.

“Mayfield threw a touchdown on 7.2% of his pass attempts, well above his career average of 5.0% and previous career high of 5.6%. Over the last three years, the average starting-caliber NFL quarterback tossed a touchdown on 4.6% of their passes. Mayfield is still projected for a strong season at 5.2% with 27.7 touchdowns, but that is far lower than the 41 he collected in 2024. Expect his passing touchdowns to come down.”

It's certainly possible Mayfield's scrambling goodness keeps on keeping on, although historically QBs do indeed run less as they get older, meaning another big-time fantasy campaign from the 30-year-old veteran will likely need to be fueled mostly through the air.

Baker Mayfield 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook

Similar to Joe Burrow and Patrick Mahomes: Mayfield is as good a bet as any to finish near the top of the league's passing leaderboards, albeit in fantasy land I'm not necessarily inclined to go out of my way to draft them early when similar pocket archetypes like Justin Herbert, Jordan Love, C.J. Stroud, and Tua Tagovailoa, among others, are going 3+ rounds later. Typically I've only prioritized Mayfield in drafts when I managed to land Mike Evans already.

Is Bucky Irving poised to seize a three-down role?

Bucky was one of the most fun players to watch with the football in his hands last season. The man was electric!

 

And yet, it took a backbreaking fourth-quarter fumble from Rachaad White in Week 16 for the Buccaneers to finally give the starting job over to the rookie. Now, Irving was receiving plenty of touches and putting up big numbers as the team's overqualified RB2, but this was still just the RB29 in terms of Fantasy Life's Utilization Score, which attempts to provide a singular number to sum up a player's workload.

It'd make a lot of sense if the awesome Year 1 and late-season surge leads to a more featured role in 2025, although the overall history of Day 3 or UDFA RBs who boomed as rookies is actually quite troubling.

Rookie RBs drafted in Rounds 4-7 or UDFA with top-24 fantasy numbers since 2015:

That said: Fantasy Life Projections have Irving set to rack up the position's ninth-most carries (225) and 10th-most targets (53). That's a scary combination should the rising second-year talent manage to replicate his top-five efficiency numbers in virtually everything from a season ago.

As for the rest of the crew:

  • White followed up his RB10 finish in 2023 with RB23 numbers last season. Of course, he did outscore Irving through the first 16 weeks of last season, only being reduced to a true backup during the team's final three games of the year. Plenty of those numbers were of the well-schemed, wide-open variety; just realize any sort of dropoff in the receiving department would be ROUGH considering no top-24 RB was more reliant on pass-game production last season.
  • Tucker had only 59 total touches last season, but he certainly made the most of them: We're talking about THE most explosive RB in the NFL when it came to percentage of carries to gain 10+ yards (14%!) last season, and Tucker also easily ranked first in yards per route run (2.6) among 82 qualified backs. The man looked good doing it and perhaps could challenge for RB2 duties if combine murmurs are to be believed.

Bucky Irving 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook

I haven't necessarily gone out of my way to select Irving in Round 2 of early fantasy drafts, but his overall ADP is reasonable. There's a decent tier drop at WR after the first 11 are off the board, and the top-two TEs also go before Irving in plenty of drafts. This leaves him up against Josh Jacobs and Chase Brown–three RBs who should have plenty of fantasy-friendly touches inside offenses with top-10 scoring potential.

Otherwise, White is an interesting FLEX-with-benefits option priced next to more clear-cut handcuffs like Ray Davis and Isaac Guerendo, while Tucker is a fine enough LAST-round dart in deeper leagues.

Are the olds still the best fantasy pass-game targets in Tampa Bay?

Evans' 11th consecutive 1,000-yard campaign featured him overcoming a midseason hamstring injury to supply one of the better feel-good moments of the year.

Perhaps most impressive about the latest greatness from No. 13 was his ability to age like fine wine: Evans' "Open Score" (meant to help quantify separation) has only gone up during the last three seasons, culminating with the future Hall of Famer tying Malik Nabers and A.J. Brown for top separator honors in 2024.

We aren't quite looking at early-career Jameis-induced production, but Evans has actually found more success with Mayfield than he did with Tom Brady!

 

 

And then there's Godwin, who reportedly left about $20 million on the table to stay in Tampa Bay. Of course, 2025 will have new challenges. Godwin turns 29 in February. His timetable for recovery from last season's dislocated ankle is unclear. Todd Bowles' assertion that he had a chance to be back for a late playoff run was intriguing, but has since been followed up by quite a bit more skepticism. Dr. Deepak Chona believes Godwin will likely be playing in Week 1 of 2025, although WR ankle data favors a moderate dip that recovers midseason.

IF healthy for Week 1, Godwin will be an absolute smash value at his present mid-tier WR3 price tag. After all, Ja'Marr Chase was the only WR with more fantasy PPR points than Godwin in Weeks 1-7 last season, and the per-route efficiency was also up there with the position's very best:

Godwin among 84 WRs with 50-plus targets:

  • Yards per route run: 2.36 (No. 10)
  • Targets per route run: 24.6% (No. 19)
  • Passer rating when targeted: 127.5 (No. 6)
  • PFF receiving grade: 85.7 (No. 10)
  • PPF points per game: 19.7 (No. 2)

 

If Godwin is not quite ready to operate at his peak powers, look for the Bucs to lean more heavily on their pair of young WRs:

  • Jalen McMillan: Give the man credit for scoring 8 TDs as a rookie, but many of his big plays (similar to Rachaad White) were of the well-schemed, blown coverage variety. Expecting an increased target share after the Bucs decided to spend a first-rounder on the position feels like wishful thinking.
  • Emeka Egbuka: THE Ohio State University's all-time leader in career receptions, Egbuka was seemingly unanimously praised by insiders and analysts alike throughout the draft process. Of course, bundles of targets might not initially be on the table as the likely third banana behind Evans and Godwin; just don't overly sleep on the WR3 in the Fantasy Life Rookie WR Super Model.

Mike Evans and Chris Godwin 2025 Fantasy Football Outlook

Evans' WR20 ADP feels like (another) bet that Father Time is coming for the soon-to-be 32-year-old veteran. While the history of 30-plus-year-old WRs balling in fantasy land isn't great, it's also not exactly non-existent. Ultimately, I'm fine mixing in the longtime stud in the same tier as fellow No. 1 vets like Terry McLaurin and DJ Moore, but the target competition and age are concerning enough to not exactly make Evans someone I'm consistently going out of my way to draft.

On the other hand, Godwin (WR35 ADP) sure feels like a good candidate to be ranked MUCH higher in Week 1 when (hopefully) healthy compared to where he's being drafted at the moment. He's a particularly great mid-round addition for teams that spent the early rounds dabbling in the QB, RB, and TE streets.

Egbuka and McMillan are viable later-round darts at the position, although expecting either to be someone you can consistently rely on without an injury to Evans or Godwin feels like wishful thinking. I've generally preferred legit starting RBs like Isiah Pacheco and Brian Robinson or potential high-end QBs like Kyler Murray and Justin Fields at a similar price over the rookie, while handcuff RBs like Isaac Guerendo and Tyler Allgeier make more sense to me than the Bucs' likely WR4.

Question 4: Is Cade Otton THE late-round TE to prioritize in 2025?

Otton has essentially handled an every-down role ever since being drafted in the fourth round of the 2022 NFL Draft. The fantasy results have been good, not great:

Otton PPR points per game by year:

  • 2024: 10 (TE12)
  • 2023: 6.9 (TE24)
  • 2022: 5.8 (TE28)

That said: Simultaneous injuries to Evans and Godwin last season did demonstrate a newfound ceiling for the 26-year-old TE, as Otton worked as THE TE1 (19.1 PPR points per game!) during Weeks 7-10 last season. 

Bottom line: The two cheapest TEs from offenses implied to score at least 24.5 points per game next season: Mike Gesicki (TE23 ADP) and Otton (TE24). While neither should exactly be prioritized as your go-to No. 1 option at the position due to their respective high-end target competition, each makes for a rather terrific second or third add in best ball land. Are their outlooks THAT different from far more expensive options like Dallas Goedert and Brenton Strange?

Has the TB defense been a pass-funnel group under Todd Bowles?

Bowles has been in charge of the Bucs defense since 2019. Perhaps not so coincidentally, perennial run-stuffing monster Vita Vea has been by the head coach's side the entire way, leading to this group regularly ranking toward the top of the league in run defense … but not so much against the pass in recent years.

Tampa Bay did use multiple top-100 picks on defensive backs this year; just realize there remains plenty of potential for aerial shootouts between Mayfield and whoever is on the opposite sideline.

Prediction for the Buccaneers 2025 Season

The Bucs are again the favorites inside the putrid NFC South, which isn't exactly guaranteed to be overly improved. Now, Bryce Young and Michael Penix could change that sentiment with better play, but that's far from a given.

Ultimately, the 9.5 win total is one of the tougher ones I've seen during this team preview series—give me OVER, albeit I wouldn't recommend putting the mortgage on this one. My bold fantasy call is Evans telling Father Time to f*ck off for another season and turning in another 1,000-plus yard, double-digit TD campaign.