Baker Mayfield's stage was set for a career playoff game following a career season -- until one fumble changed it all.

Up four with just under 12 minutes remaining against Washington on Sunday night, Mayfield had an opportunity to piece together a drive to perhaps give Tampa Bay the first multi-possession lead of the game for either team. Instead, he and rookie wideout Jalen McMillan mistimed the handoff on a jet sweep from their own 15-yard line, causing the quarterback to fumble the ball to the Commanders in what went down as the biggest swing of the Buccaneers' 23-20 defeat.

Mayfield took the blame for the loss, Bobby Kownack of NFL.com reports.

"Yeah, it comes back to me just timing it up correctly," Mayfield said postgame, per the team transcript. "First one of the year that happened on, so obviously the timing of it, not great. Being backed up, defense had just done a hell of a job getting us the ball. Another fourth down stop, and, yeah, unfortunate, but that falls on me."

Tampa Bay's defense indeed show up for the Wild Card Round. Outside of an inability to get off the field on fourth down, giving up three conversions to Washington on five tries, the unit far exceeded expectations against a top-five scoring offense, considering its middling regular-season performance and myriad injuries entering the contest.

But after stonewalling the Commanders for a goal-to-go turnover on downs just moments before, the Bucs could not repeat such heroics given just 13 yards of space between their opponent's starting spot and the end zone.

"Nothing to say to him. He's your bell cow," head coach Todd Bowles said when asked what he told Mayfield following the botched play. "When your bell cow takes a shot and something goes wrong, you got to live with that. They're human. We are going to make mistakes. He got us here. We wouldn't even be here without Baker, so really nothing to say to him."

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