TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — The Tampa Bay Buccaneers couldn't win with Baker Mayfield.
Now, they have to try to win without him.
Mayfield is expected to miss at least three weeks after dislocating his right thumb on Sunday in Tampa Bay’s loss to Minnesota.
Undrafted rookie quarterback Jalon Daniels will start next week against the Green Bay Packers. Daniels played six seasons at Kansas and beat out veteran Jake Browning for the backup job in training camp.
It can't get much worse for the Buccaneers, who are 0-3 for the first time since 2014 and have lost 10 of their past 12 games since a 6-2 start last season.
The good news: Mayfield avoided a more serious injury and the Bucs play in the weak NFC South. The Saints, Falcons and Panthers each are 1-2.
“We’re 0-3 and we’re a game out of first place, so we have to get our stuff together," coach Todd Bowles said. We gotta reach down and do more, to a coach, to a person, to a player. We gotta do more and figure out what (more) we can do. How can we be better and come back tomorrow and get ready to go?”
The Buccaneers have been spiraling since the middle of last season. They're struggling in all three phases, offense, defense and special teams, which allowed an 86-yard punt return for a score.
Bowles has been on the hot seat since the 2-7 collapse to end 2025. He's under contract through 2028 but that won't help his job security if the team doesn't find a way to turn things around.
“We’re not executing at a high enough level to turn those into victories and that’s on us," veteran wide receiver Chris Godwin Jr. said. "We have to find a way to make those wins happen. We have to go back to work. It’s not going to fix itself, so we have to figure it out.”
Mayfield hasn't played well this season after signing the richest contract in franchise history, a three-year, $165 million extension. But it's not all his fault. The offensive line hasn't protected him and keeps making mistakes. The run game is inconsistent.
“I’ve never started 0-3. I’m just going to do what I can to keep guys going,” two-time All-Pro tackle Tristan Wirfs said. "There’s nobody coming to save us — the calvary’s not coming. The guys in this locker room are going to get us out of this. I know everyone’s frustrated. I’m extremely frustrated.”
The schedule isn't going to be easy. After the Packers, the Buccaneers play the Cowboys on the road on a Thursday night and host the Steelers on Oct. 18.
Chase McLaughlin is 9 for 9 on field goals, including a 59-yarder. Not much else is working for the Buccaneers, who have had to settle for too many field goals.
The offensive line was supposed to be a strength with the starting five healthy and playing together. Instead, the unit has been a weakness. They committed crucial holding penalties that negated big plays, including an 85-yard TD pass, and allowed six sacks.
“It was a little bit of everything,” Bowles said. “I’ve said it again and again. I gotta see what the penalty situation looks like. We gotta see whether it’s play-calling, quarterback, offensive line. It’s everybody included in that. We gotta do better on third down.”
OLB David Walker had a sack in his second game. After missing his rookie season because of a knee injury, Walker has two sacks in 28 defensive snaps.
Before the injury, Mayfield missed open receivers, wasn’t in sync with Emeka Egbuka and seems anxious in the pocket probably because the offensive line has struggled.
WR Jalen McMillan (knee) is having an MRI to determine the extent of his injury. Edge rusher Rueben Bain Jr. (groin) and LB Josiah Trotter (shoulder) didn’t play.
12%: The Bucs were 2 for 17 on third downs.
The Buccaneers host the Packers (1-2) to complete a stretch of three straight home games.
See AP’s full NFL coverage here
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield (6) lays on the ground after sustaining an injury during the second half of an NFL football game against the Minnesota Vikings in Tampa, Fla., Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield (6) is tackled by Minnesota Vikings safety Joshua Metellus (44) and linebacker Blake Cashman (51) during the second half of an NFL football game in Tampa, Fla., Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)
Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield (6) leaves the field during the second half of an NFL football game against the Minnesota Vikings in Tampa, Fla., Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)
Benjamin Netanyahu traveled secretly to the United Arab Emirates over the weekend, the two countries revealed Monday.
The meeting between Netanyahu and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan took place on Sunday, two people who were briefed on the trip confirmed. One said Netanyahu asked the Emirati leader to deny a report he’d warned Israel about a looming Hamas threat ahead of the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.
Meanwhile, the European Union's top diplomat Kaja Kallas said the bloc is applying for observer status in a Saudi-led maritime defense coalition formed to protect the kingdom's energy exports. The EU already has six vessels deployed to the Red Sea to protect shipping.
Here is the latest news from the Middle East on Monday. Full coverage is available here.
The Israeli prime minister held an hourlong meeting with the UAE’s president on Sunday, according to two people briefed on Netanyahu's trip, which was first reported by Israel’s Channel 12 TV station.
One of them said the talks focused on a report published by the Israeli daily Haaretz earlier this month that said the Emirati leader warned Netanyahu about a looming attack by Hamas just ahead of Oct. 7, 2023.
Netanyahu asked Sheikh Mohamed to deny the report, according to a person said to have firsthand information about the meeting. Netanyahu’s office had previously denied the Haaretz report.
The person, along with a regional official briefed on the meeting, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the secret trip.
Late Monday, the UAE confirmed the meeting, saying the two leaders discussed bilateral relations “and ways to strengthen and develop them.”
Netanyahu's office also said late Monday the meeting focused “solely on strengthening relations.” It denied making any request to the Emirati leader about the newspaper report.
It also said the Shin Bet security agency had filed a complaint accusing Channel 12 of violating censorship rules by reporting his visit before he had returned to Israel.
—By Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Samy Magdy in Cairo
The European Union is applying for “observer status” in a new multinational maritime defense coalition led by Saudi Arabia formed to protect the kingdom’s energy exports.
The bloc’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas made the announcement on Monday, ahead of a Brussels meeting. The energy-hungry EU is facing record energy prices due to the war in Iran.
Kallas said she will ask for an expansion of the bloc’s own small naval force in the Red Sea dubbed ASPIDES to help escort cargo vessels through the key strategic chokepoint of the Bab el-Mandeb strait and protect them from attacks by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Kallas said the “need is bigger than it’s ever been” for more ships. It’s unclear what observer status in the Saudi-led coalition would mean operationally for either the EU or ASPIDES.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, has praised his country’s fighters for allegedly preventing “enemy forces” from “roaming freely” in the Strait of Hormuz.
Khamenei said in a message carried by the state broadcaster on Monday that Iran’s enemies now “do not come" closer to the strait than the Arabian Sea, which is part of the Indian Ocean.
Soon, "the Arabian Sea too, will be rid of them,” said the message, issued to mark the two-year anniversary of the killing of the militant Hezbollah group's longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon.
Khamenei hasn't been seen or heard publicly since the opening attacks of the war on Feb. 28 that killed his father and previous supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The World Health Organization said Sunday it has documented 164 deaths and 645 injuries from the war in Yemen between Sept. 19 and Sept. 26.
This brings the overall casualties since Aug. 6 to 4,481, with 838 fatalities. The latest intense fighting between the Iran-backed Houthis and Yemeni government forces has displaced more than 180,000 people.
A woman was killed and her husband wounded when an Israeli strike hit a Gaza City rooftop on Monday, Shifa Hospital officials said. Another person was also wounded and in critical condition.
The Israeli military later said it was aware of this strike and was looking into its results.
Later Monday, a second Israeli strike, on a school in the Nuseirat refugee camp, left one person critically injured, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza.
The Israeli military said it targeted a “military operative,” but did not immediately provide further details or identify the individual.
More than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed since the Gaza ceasefire took effect nearly a year ago. Around half of that number are women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which maintains detailed records that international organizations consider reliable.
The United Nations' acting Mideast envoy said Monday that settler violence in the West Bank has reached “unprecedented levels” – often with Israeli forces present.
Ramiz Alakbarov told the U.N. Security Council that 630 documented settler attacks between June 13 and Sept. 18. resulted in casualties, property damage or both. Three Palestinian communities were "fully depopulated" during that period, he said, "bringing to 49 the number of communities fully displaced under similar circumstances since January 2023.”
Israel’s expansion of settlements in the West Bank, in violation of international law, also threatens prospects of a contiguous Palestinian state and a two-state solution, Alakbarov said.
Israel’s polarizing Cabinet minister in charge of settlement construction, Bezalel Smotrich, has condemned a decision by the attorney general to freeze a contentious project near Jerusalem.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara ordered the project to be put on hold until after the Oct. 27 elections so it wouldn't “be used for election propaganda.”
The project — known as E1 settlement development — is especially controversial because it would carve out a strategic section of the West Bank in a way that critics say would destroy hopes for a viable future Palestinian state.
Smotrich accused on X Baharav-Miara of “interfering in the election campaign” and acting in the service of Netanyahu’s political opponents.
Israel summoned the Spanish Embassy’s chargé d’affaires over remarks by Spain's youth minister who declared the country's public support for a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea” — a slogan that implies a call for the elimination of the Israeli state.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said Monday that Spanish Youth Minister Sira Rego’s remarks were “part of a systematic anti-Israel policy pursued by the Spanish government” and its leader, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez. Rego was barred from entering Israel in Sept. 2025.
This report will be updated throughout the day as new developments emerge.
A displaced Yemeni walks at Al-Firdaws camp in Ras Imran, on the western outskirts of Aden, Yemen, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdulnasser Alseddik)
Cargo ships are anchored in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, before sunrise Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
A motorboat passes an anchored cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz off Bandar Abbas, Iran, early Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/ISNA via AP)
A displaced Yemeni boy plays at Al-Firdaws camp in Ras Imran, on the western outskirts of Aden, Yemen, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdulnasser Alseddik)
Volunteer Naseem Al-Adini, right, provides free meals to displaced people at the Al-Akdaf camp in Taiz, Yemen, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdulnasser Alseddik)
A displaced Yemeni walks at Al-Firdaws camp in Ras Imran, on the western outskirts of Aden, Yemen, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdulnasser Alseddik)
Displaced Yemenis sit outside at Al-Firdaws camp in Ras Imran, on the western outskirts of Aden, Yemen, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdulnasser Alseddik)
Displaced Yemeni children from Al-Kadha, west of Taiz, gather at the Al-Akdaf camp in Taiz, Yemen, Saturday, Sept. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdulnasser Alseddik)
FILE - Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu listens during a news conference with President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Dec. 29, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)
