September 10, 2026 • 9 mins
Scott Reynolds covers the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for PewterReport.com. He joined us to discuss Sunday's season opener.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
That means we have the game on Sunday and pregame
coverage from the Holy Grail with Ken Brew, myself, and
Tony Pike.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
9 a.m., four hours before kickoff.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Cannot wait. Bengals and Buccaneers. If you want to know
about the Buccaneers, for my money, there's one place to
go to go to pewterreport.com. Comprehensive Tampa Bay Buccaneers coverage.
And Scott Reynolds from that website, kind enough to give
us a few minutes this afternoon to talk about the
season opener.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Scott, good afternoon. How are you?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I appreciate you doing this.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
When you saw the Baker Mayfield news, because we were
watching this from afar thinking, okay, Baker, who already plays
and walks around with a chip on his shoulder, is
going to have a bigger one if he doesn't have
his contract done. It kind of felt to me like
a little bit, and I'm watching it from a distance,
like the deal came from out of left field. What
was the reaction to what Baker and the Bucs did?
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Yeah, it wasn't terribly surprising that that it got done
just because of the fact they seem pretty close, closer
than Baker indicated during that kind of fiery press conference
at the start of training camp. But at the same time,
you didn't know, right? You didn't know if they were
going to cross that finish line before the start of
the season. They ultimately did. I don't know that it
really affects Baker. I've kind of talked to these sources
(01:16):
in the building. Players have been out of practice and
they're just like, he's the same guy, whether he would
have got the deal or not.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
He finds a chip.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Sometimes when there isn't a chip, sometimes, There's somebody where
he's been wronged by that he'll have that chip on
his shoulder and play for.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
But yeah, I think that he's just raring to go.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
It probably is a little bit of an ease heading
into this regular season because he doesn't have to worry
about his future.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Am I going to get franchise tax next year? All
of those kind of things.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
So I think having a more focused, locked-in Baker, if
that's even possible because the dude's locked in all the time,
but it's probably for the best for him and the team.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I think the player that I'm going to be watching
most closely, if that's the right way to put it
on Sunday is Ruben Bain, because, you know, before the
Bengals traded for Dexter Lawrence, we spent weeks talking about guys,
the Bengals might take it number 10 and he has
somebody we discussed the possibility of taking a lot. How
is his training camp and preseason gone?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
You know, it's incredible. He is not a rookie.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
He is a professional and it just, he just doesn't
have any NFL experience yet, but he, approaches the game
like a professional.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I think he has designs on being a Hall of
Fame player.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I know that's getting ahead of himself, but that's the
type of mentality he has. It's not about winning a
Super Bowl. It's how many Super Bowls can I win, right?
Speaker 3 (02:41):
And it's not cocky.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
It's just this self-belief that he can do whatever he
puts his mind to. And let's not forget that it
wasn't the only Miami Hurricane edge rusher that was drafted
in the first round.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
His running mate, Akeem Mesidor, was as well.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
And that's a testament to.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Jason Taylor, right?
Speaker 4 (02:59):
When you've got a position coach at the Hurricanes who
is an NFL Hall of Famer, one of the best
sack artists of all time, teaching you how to rush
the passer at the NFL level and applying that to college,
you're getting great tutelage. And just having that professional mindset,
I think it was something that he was always kind
of intrinsically about him was that kind of professional mindset.
(03:23):
But then the way that he was taught at Miami,
it just kind of like was the best of both worlds.
You're having this this guy that has these intrinsic talents
and then just getting refined by somebody who's been there
and done that at the highest level at Jason Taylor.
So I think he walks into the Tampa Bay Buccaneers organization.
(03:43):
He's a ready to play out of the box rookie.
who is going to, I think, be in contention for
defensive rookie of the year honors, probably with David Bailey.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Buccaneers make the playoffs five consecutive years. Midway through last season,
they're 6-2. It feels like they're going to be back
to win the NFC South, and then it goes sideways.
What that went wrong in the second half of the
season has to go right this year.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Well, I think the injuries caught up with them more
so than anything.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
I've covered this team. This is my 31st year. The
common denominator is between the two Super Bowl victories in
2002 under John Gruden and the 2020 team under Bruce Arians,
of course, quarterback by Tom Brady, wasn't just the talent.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
It was health. Those are the two healthiest teams.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
In Bucs history in terms of not having any starters
really outside of maybe one guy on injured reserve, just
being remarkably healthy. And if you have great talent and
it's available to you on a weekly basis, you're going
to win more games than you're going to lose. And
I think last year was a very talented Buccaneer team.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
It was coming off.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Of a 10-win season in 2024. Granted, Liam Cohen left
and went across the state to Jacksonville and did great
things there, right? But it was an offensive line that
never had all five starters.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Available for any game, right? It was just that.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
It was Mike and Chris, you know, Mike Evans, Chris Gatlin,
the two top receivers being out for weeks at a
stretch here and there. It was... wide receiver, a mega
book of the first round pick out of Ohio state.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Right.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
And they figured he was going to be a damn
good player, but he was the fourth guy on the
depth chart. But the third guy, Jalen McMillan broke his
neck in the preseason. It was out for all the
three games, you know, then Mike and Chris are gone.
All of a sudden you're your fourth wide receiver, your
rookie that you, you love and he's going to be
the future, but the future is now. And he had
(05:33):
to be coming off a season where, uh, He went
deep into the playoffs, won a national championship, right? Didn't
have that month of January to rest like other college
players did.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
He was busy still playing football games. He had a
rookie wall, right?
Speaker 4 (05:47):
He had a hot start to the year, six touchdowns
in the first, I think, five or six games.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
But then he had a rookie wall, right? And all
of a sudden, your fourth receiver in the depth chart
has to lead the.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Team in catches, touchdowns, and yards.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
And it just was kind of a snowball effect. And
those injuries caught up to him. and they literally just
ran out of gas towards the end of the season.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Scott Reynolds, pewter report.com.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
If I look at any list of NFL head coaches
on the hot seat, I will see Zach Taylor's name.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
And in most of them, I'll see Todd Bowles name.
I think was Zach.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I understand why, but I think a lot of his
contributions to this team sort of get glossed over unfairly.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
What's your assessment of the job that Todd Bowles has done?
Speaker 4 (06:26):
You know, I think it's time for Todd to kind
of take the step forward a little bit.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
You know, I kind of call, the Buccaneers, the Kings
of crap Hill.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Because the NFC South has been the crappiest division of football.
I mean, look no further than last year and eight
and nine team won the division.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
That was the Carolina Panthers. And guess what? There were
two other teams that were eight, nine, also Tampa Bay
and Atlanta. Right. You know, and, and then his first
season as.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Head coach in 2022, even with, with kind of a
fading Tom Brady, they won the division.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
What was the record? Eight, nine.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
So it's, If you want to truly be an elite
NFC team, you've got to win double-digit games.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
If you want to be a dominant team within your division,
you've got to be like the Patriots.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
How many years have we seen the Patriots, under Tom
Brady and Bill Belichick, just run roughshod over a downtrodden
AFC East? Sometimes maybe the Jets were okay. Sometimes the
Bulls were okay. But the Dolphins never really were. It's
a thing where where when you're in a crappy division,
like win it, man, get 12, 13 wins, you know, and,
(07:38):
and be the dominant team. And it seems like even
when the Buccaneers have one division titles, it's always coming
down to week 18, you know, and you got to
win this game. And then you got the ninth win
and you snuck in the playoffs. And, and so I
think that's the next step for Todd Bowles is you
have talent on this team. This is a very talented team,
but I think when Vegas looks at the Bucs and
(07:59):
says eight and a half wins, you look around the
national consensus, ESPN, NFL.com, these, these national media outlets, maybe
they've got the bucks winning the division, but maybe with
nine wins. So I think for Todd, it's, it's time
now to step up and, and really make some noise
because you've got one playoff win in three years that
(08:22):
you've been to the playoffs.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Oh, and by the way, all three of those years,
you had a home playoff, you know, game and you
only won one of them.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
So, That's where he needs to take the next step
is have the bounce back year, get to.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
10 wins or more, but now go further in the postseason.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
It reminds me of how people used to make fun
of Jeff Fisher, like Mr. 7 and 9, and they
play more games now. So maybe Todd Bowles is Mr.
8 and 9, hopefully from his and your perspective, a
little bit better this year. Scott, I can't thank you enough, man.
Thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Thank you. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Scott Reynolds. The website is terrific. Pewter report.com sports headlines.
And our guy Lee Sterling tries to make us some
money this weekend. Next ESPN, 1530 Cincinnati's ESPN, 1530 traffic.
That means we have the game on Sunday and pregame
coverage from the Holy Grail with Ken Brew, myself, and
Tony Pike.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
9 a.m., four hours before kickoff.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Cannot wait. Bengals and Buccaneers. If you want to know
about the Buccaneers, for my money, there's one place to
go to go to pewterreport.com. Comprehensive Tampa Bay Buccaneers coverage.
And Scott Reynolds from that website, kind enough to give
us a few minutes this afternoon to talk about the
season opener.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Scott, good afternoon. How are you?
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
I appreciate you doing this.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
When you saw the Baker Mayfield news, because we were
watching this from afar thinking, okay, Baker, who already plays
and walks around with a chip on his shoulder, is
going to have a bigger one if he doesn't have
his contract done. It kind of felt to me like
a little bit, and I'm watching it from a distance,
like the deal came from out of left field. What
was the reaction to what Baker and the Bucs did?
Speaker 4 (00:53):
Yeah, it wasn't terribly surprising that that it got done
just because of the fact they seem pretty close, closer
than Baker indicated during that kind of fiery press conference
at the start of training camp. But at the same time,
you didn't know, right? You didn't know if they were
going to cross that finish line before the start of
the season. They ultimately did. I don't know that it
really affects Baker. I've kind of talked to these sources
(01:16):
in the building. Players have been out of practice and
they're just like, he's the same guy, whether he would
have got the deal or not.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
He finds a chip.
Speaker 4 (01:23):
Sometimes when there isn't a chip, sometimes, There's somebody where
he's been wronged by that he'll have that chip on
his shoulder and play for.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
But yeah, I think that he's just raring to go.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
It probably is a little bit of an ease heading
into this regular season because he doesn't have to worry
about his future.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
Am I going to get franchise tax next year? All
of those kind of things.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
So I think having a more focused, locked-in Baker, if
that's even possible because the dude's locked in all the time,
but it's probably for the best for him and the team.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
I think the player that I'm going to be watching
most closely, if that's the right way to put it
on Sunday is Ruben Bain, because, you know, before the
Bengals traded for Dexter Lawrence, we spent weeks talking about guys,
the Bengals might take it number 10 and he has
somebody we discussed the possibility of taking a lot. How
is his training camp and preseason gone?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
You know, it's incredible. He is not a rookie.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
He is a professional and it just, he just doesn't
have any NFL experience yet, but he, approaches the game
like a professional.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
I think he has designs on being a Hall of
Fame player.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I know that's getting ahead of himself, but that's the
type of mentality he has. It's not about winning a
Super Bowl. It's how many Super Bowls can I win, right?
Speaker 3 (02:41):
And it's not cocky.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
It's just this self-belief that he can do whatever he
puts his mind to. And let's not forget that it
wasn't the only Miami Hurricane edge rusher that was drafted
in the first round.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
His running mate, Akeem Mesidor, was as well.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
And that's a testament to.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Jason Taylor, right?
Speaker 4 (02:59):
When you've got a position coach at the Hurricanes who
is an NFL Hall of Famer, one of the best
sack artists of all time, teaching you how to rush
the passer at the NFL level and applying that to college,
you're getting great tutelage. And just having that professional mindset,
I think it was something that he was always kind
of intrinsically about him was that kind of professional mindset.
(03:23):
But then the way that he was taught at Miami,
it just kind of like was the best of both worlds.
You're having this this guy that has these intrinsic talents
and then just getting refined by somebody who's been there
and done that at the highest level at Jason Taylor.
So I think he walks into the Tampa Bay Buccaneers organization.
(03:43):
He's a ready to play out of the box rookie.
who is going to, I think, be in contention for
defensive rookie of the year honors, probably with David Bailey.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Buccaneers make the playoffs five consecutive years. Midway through last season,
they're 6-2. It feels like they're going to be back
to win the NFC South, and then it goes sideways.
What that went wrong in the second half of the
season has to go right this year.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
Well, I think the injuries caught up with them more
so than anything.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
I've covered this team. This is my 31st year. The
common denominator is between the two Super Bowl victories in
2002 under John Gruden and the 2020 team under Bruce Arians,
of course, quarterback by Tom Brady, wasn't just the talent.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
It was health. Those are the two healthiest teams.
Speaker 4 (04:26):
In Bucs history in terms of not having any starters
really outside of maybe one guy on injured reserve, just
being remarkably healthy. And if you have great talent and
it's available to you on a weekly basis, you're going
to win more games than you're going to lose. And
I think last year was a very talented Buccaneer team.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
It was coming off.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
Of a 10-win season in 2024. Granted, Liam Cohen left
and went across the state to Jacksonville and did great
things there, right? But it was an offensive line that
never had all five starters.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Available for any game, right? It was just that.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
It was Mike and Chris, you know, Mike Evans, Chris Gatlin,
the two top receivers being out for weeks at a
stretch here and there. It was... wide receiver, a mega
book of the first round pick out of Ohio state.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Right.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
And they figured he was going to be a damn
good player, but he was the fourth guy on the
depth chart. But the third guy, Jalen McMillan broke his
neck in the preseason. It was out for all the
three games, you know, then Mike and Chris are gone.
All of a sudden you're your fourth wide receiver, your
rookie that you, you love and he's going to be
the future, but the future is now. And he had
(05:33):
to be coming off a season where, uh, He went
deep into the playoffs, won a national championship, right? Didn't
have that month of January to rest like other college
players did.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
He was busy still playing football games. He had a
rookie wall, right?
Speaker 4 (05:47):
He had a hot start to the year, six touchdowns
in the first, I think, five or six games.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
But then he had a rookie wall, right? And all
of a sudden, your fourth receiver in the depth chart
has to lead the.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Team in catches, touchdowns, and yards.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
And it just was kind of a snowball effect. And
those injuries caught up to him. and they literally just
ran out of gas towards the end of the season.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Scott Reynolds, pewter report.com.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
If I look at any list of NFL head coaches
on the hot seat, I will see Zach Taylor's name.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
And in most of them, I'll see Todd Bowles name.
I think was Zach.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
I understand why, but I think a lot of his
contributions to this team sort of get glossed over unfairly.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
What's your assessment of the job that Todd Bowles has done?
Speaker 4 (06:26):
You know, I think it's time for Todd to kind
of take the step forward a little bit.
Speaker 3 (06:32):
You know, I kind of call, the Buccaneers, the Kings
of crap Hill.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Because the NFC South has been the crappiest division of football.
I mean, look no further than last year and eight
and nine team won the division.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
That was the Carolina Panthers. And guess what? There were
two other teams that were eight, nine, also Tampa Bay
and Atlanta. Right. You know, and, and then his first
season as.
Speaker 4 (06:54):
Head coach in 2022, even with, with kind of a
fading Tom Brady, they won the division.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
What was the record? Eight, nine.
Speaker 4 (07:01):
So it's, If you want to truly be an elite
NFC team, you've got to win double-digit games.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
If you want to be a dominant team within your division,
you've got to be like the Patriots.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
How many years have we seen the Patriots, under Tom
Brady and Bill Belichick, just run roughshod over a downtrodden
AFC East? Sometimes maybe the Jets were okay. Sometimes the
Bulls were okay. But the Dolphins never really were. It's
a thing where where when you're in a crappy division,
like win it, man, get 12, 13 wins, you know, and,
(07:38):
and be the dominant team. And it seems like even
when the Buccaneers have one division titles, it's always coming
down to week 18, you know, and you got to
win this game. And then you got the ninth win
and you snuck in the playoffs. And, and so I
think that's the next step for Todd Bowles is you
have talent on this team. This is a very talented team,
but I think when Vegas looks at the Bucs and
(07:59):
says eight and a half wins, you look around the
national consensus, ESPN, NFL.com, these, these national media outlets, maybe
they've got the bucks winning the division, but maybe with
nine wins. So I think for Todd, it's, it's time
now to step up and, and really make some noise
because you've got one playoff win in three years that
(08:22):
you've been to the playoffs.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Oh, and by the way, all three of those years,
you had a home playoff, you know, game and you
only won one of them.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
So, That's where he needs to take the next step
is have the bounce back year, get to.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
10 wins or more, but now go further in the postseason.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
It reminds me of how people used to make fun
of Jeff Fisher, like Mr. 7 and 9, and they
play more games now. So maybe Todd Bowles is Mr.
8 and 9, hopefully from his and your perspective, a
little bit better this year. Scott, I can't thank you enough, man.
Thanks so much.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
Thank you. Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Scott Reynolds. The website is terrific. Pewter report.com sports headlines.
And our guy Lee Sterling tries to make us some
money this weekend. Next ESPN, 1530 Cincinnati's ESPN, 1530 traffic.
Mo Egger News
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