TAMPA, Fla. -- Where exactly would the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have ended up had it not been for a costly lost fumble by quarterback Baker Mayfield on a jet sweep with wide receiver Jalen McMillan in the wild-card round of the playoffs against the Washington Commanders? Where would they have gone had reserve cornerback Josh Hayes not been at the mercy of Commanders receiver Terry McLaurin on fourth-and-2 on a go-ahead touchdown with 9:50 to go?

Or if there hadn't been a miscue on Dyami Brown's touchdown, or center Graham Barton hadn't snapped the ball early, resulting in Bucky Irving's 2-yard tackle for a loss from the Washington 12-yard line? Or if coach Todd Bowles opted to go for it on fourth-and-3 from the Commanders' 14-yard line with 4:45 to go instead of kicking a game-tying field goal?

"Once we went backwards, we had to tie the ballgame," Bowles explained.

Outside linebacker Joe Tryon-Shoyinka said of the decision, which did come under some scrutiny from fans, "When you're making decisions, you've only got like a half, split-second. I'd like to see them make a better decision. It's a hard job. He's an amazing man leading this team so I'd like to see them do a better job."

It is worth noting that the Bucs' defense played nearly 57% more snaps than Washington, with more than double the number of plays spent defending their own red zone (19 versus eight), which is indicative of not being able to get off the field to get the offense the ball back. They also had to defend five fourth-down attempts. At no point during the regular season did the Bucs have to defend more than three, except for Week 2.

"It wasn't harder," Bowles said of defending so many red zone attempts. "We knew they were going to do it. We were prepared for it. [Jayden Daniels] out-athleted us on a few plays, and that's a credit to him."

Would they have exceeded last year's effort, which ended in a 31-23 loss at the Detroit Lions in the divisional round?

Mayfield thought so, saying, "This group had the makeup to go all the way. Unfortunately we didn't bring our best stuff tonight and Washington did."

Would they have?

Here's a look at the Bucs' season:

The offense's explosion

The Bucs (10-7) won their fourth straight division title. Each season since Bowles took over as head coach in 2022, they have increased their win total by one. After offensive coordinator Dave Canales was hired away by the Carolina Panthers, they brought in offensive coordinator Liam Coen -- who helped them put up staggering numbers and, like Canales, might end up getting a head-coaching job after one year after they averaged 28.6 offensive points per game, fourth best in the league.

Then there's Mayfield, who increased his personal best touchdown total from 28 in 2023 to 41 -- tied for second-most touchdowns in the league with MVP candidate Lamar Jackson. Mayfield also set a franchise single-game postseason completion rate record (83.3%) in the loss, and it was the second-highest postseason completion percentage of any quarterback in the league since 2012.

In the regular season, the Bucs became the first team in NFL history to complete 70% of their passes and average over five yards per carry throughout the course of an entire season. They joined the 1998 San Francisco 49ers as the only teams to throw for 40 or more passing touchdowns and average over five yards per carry in the same season. And they became the third team to throw for 40 or more touchdowns and complete 70% of their passes in a season, joining the 2020 Green Bay Packers and the 2011 New Orleans Saints.

On the ground, according to Elias Sports, they became the sixth team since the 1970 merger to have over a 1,000 rushing yard improvement year-over-year (excluding the 1982-1983 seasons, which were affected by the 1982 strike). It took general manager Jason Licht a few years to do it, but in Irving, he seems to have finally hit a home run on a running back draft selection. Irving's 1,514 scrimmage yards were 10th most of any player in the league, and Irving technically wasn't a starter. It was also the most of any rookie. His 5.4 yards per rush was fourth best of any running back in the league too.

And then there was wide receiver Mike Evans, who managed to tie Jerry Rice's all-time record for most consecutive 1,000-yard seasons (11) despite missing three games. His 11 touchdowns were fourth most of any receiver in the league, and his performance against Commanders cornerback Marshon Lattimore (5-for-5 for 73 yards and a touchdown with Lattimore as the nearest defender) caused the Commanders to pull Lattimore off of him and double team him. He finished the game with seven catches for 92 yards.

The injuries

Though Bowles wouldn't allow injuries to serve as an excuse for not being able to go the distance, it's certainly worth a closer look. Their starting secondary, featuring outside cornerbacks Jamel Dean and Zyon McCollum, nickelback Tykee Smith, All-Pro safety Antoine Winfield Jr. and safety Jordan Whitehead, barely a full quarter together in the two games they all played -- as McCollum left the first quarter of Week 1 with a concussion with 45 seconds to go, and Dean left with 2:20 to go in the second quarter in Week 6 with a hamstring injury.

In all, 18 starters across offense, defense and special teams missed a combined 62 games. The offense still managed to put points on the board, even after losing Evans for his three-game stretch and then Chris Godwin (for the season) in Week 7.

There was a particularly high number of soft tissue injuries that occurred during Friday practices and Bowles said he would take a look at this as part of his season review.

"Me and Jason [Licht] will sit down and talk about how we want to approach the offseason," Bowles said. "The practice squad has a big part to do with it, whether it's all rookies [or] whether it's a mix of rookies and vets. What we're able to get, what we're able to see and those type of things ... we will sit down and talk about it, and it will be a long conversation."

Bowles thought they slowed down as a defense and determining what went wrong will be part of his offseason self-scouting.

"I thought we were fast starting the season," Bowles said. "We got banged up pretty early, and we made some routine plays look hard and I didn't like that about it. That will probably eat at me the whole offseason."

While it can be tricky to measure a team's on-field speed as a whole, there are certain metrics that can provide clues, such as NFL Next Gen Stats' time to sack metric -- in which the Bucs averaged 4.31 seconds, second fastest in the league. In looking at average time to tackle among the team's linebackers in 2024, it was 5.095 seconds, whereas it was 4.933 seconds in 2023.

The loss of inside linebacker SirVocea Dennis hurt them perhaps more than anyone expected in the middle of the field, as they were really counting on him to work in tandem with Lavonte David. Dennis suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in Week 4, but sources say he's just a couple weeks away from being medically cleared.

The ability to cross-train nickels and safeties helped, especially in the case o in that they had Christian Izien -- who suffered a season-ending torn pectoral muscle in Week 16. They also had Tavierre Thomas, who played nickelback primarily with the Houston Texans. And they got big contributions down the stretch by Kaevon Merriweather, who was cut midseason and Bowles credited with a change in approach, in addition to picking up Mike Edwards off of waivers just prior to Week 12.

"[Merriweather] became one of our better safeties from the second half of the season," Bowles said.

But the depth at outside corner was lacking after trading away Carlton Davis to the Lions and Bryce Hall going down in Week 1 with a season-ending knee injury.

Moving on to 2025

Some of the things that showed up against Washington were season-long issues that will need to be addressed in the offseason. While the Bucs piled on the points and were among the stingiest teams in the league in the fourth quarter -- as evidence by their 72 fourth-quarter points margin in victories, second most -- they struggled to close out games decided by one score or less.

They were 2-5 in those games -- tied for 25th in the league (.286) with the Saints (5-12) and Tennessee Titans (3-14). In fact, only one team in the postseason had a worse record (1-6) in one-score games -- the Denver Broncos (10-7).

By comparison, the 15-2 Chiefs were 10-0 in one-score games, the 12-5 Commanders were 8-2, the 14-3 Minnesota Vikings 8-1 and the 11-6 Rams were 8-4 in one-score games.

"I think specifically as an offense -- we were top 10 in pretty much every category except for turnovers," said Otton, referring to six combined turnovers in both losses to the Falcons and their Week 16 loss to the Dallas Cowboys, which all happened in one-score games. "That's something as a team, as a group, we'll work on fixing next year. Definitely when you look back at it, just some of these mistakes in key times definitely came back to bite us."

Aside from overcoming trends, they'll have to flesh out their roster through the draft, free agency and trades.

"[In the] offseason, you reevaluate everything," Bowles said. "There's nothing that goes unturned."

The Bucs will have to determine if they want to move on from Dean as he's set to count $15 million against the salary cap in 2025 and was active for 12 games this year and 13 last year.

The Bucs will have to make a decision on Godwin, who is set to become an unrestricted free agent after a blistering start to the season. Although the Bucs already rewarded him a three-year, $60 million deal the last time he faced free agency while he was recovering from a torn ACL and MCL, will they pony up to further invest in the position after giving Evans a two-year contract worth up to $52 million last offseason.

"He's an outstanding player," Bowles said of Godwin. "If we can sign him back at all, I'd love to have him back here. I don't know the significance yet of how long he will be out and how he will recover, but we would definitely like to have him back."

There's also, of course, David, who's been on one-year deals. David said he does not have a timetable on making a decision for 2025, but whatever he decides, it will be important that he goes out on his own terms.

"It's always important to go out on my own terms," David said. "When I started playing on this level, I always said I wanted to go out on my own terms. I don't want nobody to force me out. I want to put my best foot forward every time, to make sure that when I do leave the game, you can stamp that I was an incredible player. That's just how I feel."