A chronicle of the season · Anno 2026
“We Take What We Want”
For its first three decades this house was the worst in the sport by a considerable margin — twenty-six consecutive losses to start its existence, uniforms the realm openly mocked, whole decades with nothing in them.
Then it won in 2003. Then it did something stranger: in 2021 it borrowed the greatest lord who ever played, won immediately, and watched him leave. Tampa has two thrones and neither of them feels quite like it belongs to the house.
Baker Mayfield. First overall pick, discarded by three houses, and rebuilt here into something better than anyone expected. He is the most purely enjoyable lord in the realm and plays like a man still settling a score with everyone who let him go.
Not much. Gainwell in. This house went 8–9 and made no large moves — either patience or a house waiting to see which way its division breaks.
That the discarded lord keeps proving the point.
Cincinnati spent its whole winter buying a defence. That defence took four balls off Tampa Bay in a single afternoon, and the last of them Baker Mayfield lost while trying to score.
House Bengals · House Buccaneers
The line you say tomorrow“Baker Mayfield lost the ball three times, and the last one he lost while trying to score.”