The Tampa Bay Buccaneers (7-6) may have won its Week 14 matchup against the Las Vegas Raiders (2-11), but it was anything but easy.

Sure, this is the NFL and anything can happen. Good teams can certainly find themselves on the losing end of games if they don’t show up for a full four quarters, but at the same time, this is a Raiders team that had lost eight straight games coming into Sunday and yet it took everything the Bucs had (along with Aiden O’Connell’s injury and several Raiders miscues) to beat them.

It was just like the Week 13 matchup against what was a 3-8 (and now 3-10) Carolina Panthers team before that game started: mistake-filled football that nearly cost the Bucs a win against a bad opponent.

“Turnovers didn’t help. We shot ourselves in the foot in a couple penalties right there and they stoned us at the line of scrimmage a couple times as well,” Bucs head coach Todd Bowles said after the game. “We didn’t play well overall. It’s hard to win a game when you turn it over three times but those guys stuck with it, made some plays in the second half and we got it done. It’s not always going to be pretty, but as long as you can win them, it doesn’t matter how you get them.”

Baker Mayfield was shaky outside of the first two drives that generated 14-points. A lot of that had to do with an offensive line that struggled with a consistently-disruptive Raiders pass rush for most of the game, but Mayfield certainly played a big role in the struggles. His three turnovers in the first half, especially the interception he threw, are the prime examples of that. Then there were multiple times where he either overthrew or underthrew guys in the second half of the game.

Tampa Bay didn’t gain control of the game until about 8:45 left in the game and even then, the Raiders were able to once again make it a one-possession game until the Bucs finally blew it open late in the fourth quarter. And while that’s obviously better than going to overtime like it did the week prior – that’s not what you want to see against one of the league’s worst teams. The Bucs’ remaining schedule features just one remaining team with a winning record and that’s the currently playoff-bound Los Angeles Chargers, so what should we expect against a team that’s actually good?

The most frustrating part about the struggles is a lot of it has to do with something the Buccaneers can’t control: injuries. They’ve been racked by them all year long and Week 14 followed suit. Antoine Winfield Jr. was ruled out of the game early with a knee injury and Bucky Irving left the game early, himself. While he was never officially ruled out, he still didn’t return.

Inconsistent execution from the starters is definitely a factor, but a big reason why there’s such a lack of it is because the Bucs have a lot backups and practice squad guys on the field. It’s bound to happen at some point.

With the way the injuries have taken their toll, this coaching staff is going to have really dig deep and find ways to come up with effective gameplans. Todd Bowles has struggled to do that, for the most part, while Liam Coen has managed to get by. Both the offense and defense are going to have be on point, though, because neither side can afford the other to make mistakes and/or put it in a bad spot.

It’s certainly been a rollercoaster of a season, but the Buccaneers have to stay at the top moving forward. If they continue the up-and-down play, either the Dallas Cowboys, New Orleans Saints, or Panthers (the bad teams, not including the Chargers) will catch them and it will certainly put a major dent -and even kill- their playoff hopes.