“It’s my defense. I call it.”

Rick Stroud · Tampa Bay TimesThey had the ball eight times inside your twenty and scored seven touchdowns. Where do you start on that?

BOWLES: Third down.

They had thirteen of them. They convert five. Four of the eight we stop, they go for it and get it. So in a football game that lasted three and a half hours we got off the field four times.

Jenna Laine · ESPNTheir fourth downs. All four of them. What were you in on those?

BOWLES: Two of them we were in man and lost it inside. One was a pressure and he got the ball out before it got there. The other one they ran it and got two and a half.

The two man calls I’d make again tomorrow. The pressure I wouldn’t.

Greg Auman · The AthleticTodd, there’s no defensive coordinator on this staff. You call it yourself. Fifty-four this afternoon on top of what you gave up last Sunday. Is that a personnel problem or is that a play-calling problem?

BOWLES: It’s my defense. I call it. So it’s mine.

Greg AumanThat’s all of it?

BOWLES: I put the plan in Wednesday, I called it this afternoon, they scored fifty-four. Yeah. That’s all of it.

Greg AumanWould you consider giving those calls to somebody else?

BOWLES: I’ll look at everything tonight.

Greg AumanIncluding that?

BOWLES: Including that.

National reporter · CBS SportsDo you understand how that is going to be taken tonight?

BOWLES: Yes.

National reporter · CBS SportsAnd that’s all right with you?

BOWLES: It’s a fair way to take it.

Eduardo A. Encina · Tampa Bay TimesEleven third downs and you didn’t convert one. You didn’t score after the first quarter and you never got inside their twenty all afternoon.

BOWLES: Yeah.

We scored fourteen points and never crossed the twenty-yard line. That’s two plays. When it had to be eleven plays we didn’t have eleven plays in us. Zac had answers on the sheet. We didn’t run them.

Eduardo A. EncinaIs that on the coordinator?

BOWLES: No.

Scott Smith · Buccaneers.comVita had ten tackles, six for loss, a sack, and four times he got to the quarterback.

BOWLES: Nobody blocked him. Not one time all afternoon, and they had two on him every snap and three on him four or five times.

Six for loss. Six. He has been in this building since he was twenty-three years old and I have never once had a conversation with that man about effort. Not in a walkthrough, not in August, not in whatever that was out there today.

I told him coming off. He didn’t want to hear it, which is fair.

Rick Stroud · Tampa Bay TimesIt was thirty to fourteen at the half. What changed on their side of it?

BOWLES: They were in man early and we hit two of them. Then they got out of it. From the back half of the first quarter on they played two safeties deep, disguised most of it, and made us go take the six-yard ones. We didn’t take enough of them.

Rick StroudWas that halftime or was it live?

BOWLES: Live. Somebody over there got out of it before the first quarter was over and never came back to a thing we spent the week on. That’s good coaching.

National reporter · NFL NetworkTheir head coach is in his first year in a football building. Does that register at all from where you were standing?

BOWLES: I don’t know him.

They went for it on fourth down four times and got four. Nobody decides that standing on a sideline in the second quarter. That gets decided during the week, and then somebody has to be willing to do it while the game is still close, and he was.

Jenna Laine · ESPNNobody in this league has given up more than you have through two weeks. Not one team.

BOWLES: I know where we are.

Jenna LaineTwo weeks ago this was the favorite to win the division.

BOWLES: It was. I had us there too.

National reporter · CBS SportsThere’s been a lot written this week about your situation here. Have you spoken with ownership today?

BOWLES: No.

National reporter · CBS SportsDo you expect to?

BOWLES: I couldn’t tell you I’m safe. I don’t know that, and it isn’t my end of it. I coach the football team on Sunday.

Local TV · WFLAWhat did you say to them in there?

BOWLES: That I have to call it better than I called it today. Then I let them get on the bus.

(He stayed at the lectern for several seconds after the last question, asked whether anybody had another one, and left when nobody did.)

Eduardo A. Encina · Tampa Bay TimesFour interceptions.

MAYFIELD: Four. Yeah, that’s the football game, you don’t have to go looking anywhere else.

Two of them went to their linebacker. Second-year kid, he’s got the green dot on. Both times I had him leaving and he was not leaving, he was sitting right there in the window waiting on me. Twice. Same guy, same throw, an hour apart.

Eduardo A. EncinaSame read both times?

MAYFIELD: Basically. That’s worse.

Greg Auman · The AthleticYou’re backed up inside your own fifteen and the first thing you do is hit Godwin for eighty-seven.

MAYFIELD: That was Chris. I put it up in a decent spot and he went and got it over a guy and then ran sixty yards with two of them hanging off him. He’s thirty years old and he did that in a hundred degrees.

He had two catches today. Two. That’s me.

Jenna Laine · ESPNYou didn’t get inside their twenty. Not once.

MAYFIELD: I know.

We hit two shots early and then they got in that two-high thing and just sat down in it. They’d give us six, seven yards underneath all day, take it, please, and then it’s third-and-four and we can’t get third-and-four. Zero for eleven. I don’t think I’ve ever been part of a zero-for-eleven.

Jenna LaineDid you keep looking for the shot?

MAYFIELD: Yeah. That’s the honest answer, I kept trying to hit the one I already hit. You do that when you’re behind like that and it’s a hundred degrees and you can hear the stadium.

Rick Stroud · Tampa Bay TimesTodd said he’d look at everything tonight, including who calls the defense.

MAYFIELD: I’m not touching that one, man. Ask him, he’ll tell you. He always tells you.

That’s the guy who took me when nobody was calling. I’m not doing a single thing to him from up here.

National reporter · NFL NetworkBaker, you were the first pick in Cleveland in 2018. Their quarterback went twenty-six of thirty-five this afternoon and didn’t throw one. Does that land any differently for you than it does for the rest of this room?

MAYFIELD: No.

He played a hell of a game. I watched a couple of their drives from the bench, which you’re not supposed to do. He was on time with everything, he took what they gave him for four quarters, he never got greedy one time. That’s hard at twenty-four. Credit to him and credit to whoever’s got him.

National reporter · NFL NetworkYou and this team couldn’t get an extension done before camp, and now it’s 0–2 and four interceptions. Is there a scenario where—

MAYFIELD: Come on, man.

(pause) No, ask it. Go ahead and ask it, you’ve got a job to do.

National reporter · NFL NetworkIs there a scenario where this is your last season in Tampa?

MAYFIELD: I don’t know. That’s honest. In July I’d have told you no. I’ve thought about it, more than once. You’d have to not own a phone.

Local TV · WFLAThey booed at the half.

MAYFIELD: Thirty to fourteen at home. Yeah.

I’d rather that than the other thing where they just — (he stopped) They should’ve booed.

Scott Smith · Buccaneers.comWhere does this go tomorrow?

MAYFIELD: We’re in at nine. I’ll watch all four of them about six times before anybody else is out of bed, that’s not me being tough, that’s just what happens when you throw four.

Local TV · WFLAAnything for the fans?

MAYFIELD: Nah. Not tonight. They watched it.