If you’ve been riding along with Tampa Bay’s preseason, you’ve felt the mood swing from “bubble guys making noise” to “reality check” in no time flat. And tonight against Buffalo, one flashpoint grabbed every headline. And it hit at the worst time for a rookie fighting for a roster spot.

One snap, one reaction, one ejection, and suddenly the talk around Shilo Sanders isn’t his special-teams juice or depth at safety, it’s whether he can rein in the fire that got him here and turn it into the discipline he needs to make it to the 53-man roster. Yeah, rookie safety Shilo Sanders swung at Bills tight end Zach Davidson after the two got tangled downfield and got himself ejected.

And Todd Bowles really wasn’t in the mood for pampering. And after that loss against the Bills, it’s fair enough. He called the act ‘inexcusable‘ and claimed that Shilo should know better. “You know you can’t throw punches in this league; it’s an inexcusable thing that will get you out every time,” he said.

You simply cannot lose control of your emotions as a rookie. Not before the season even starts. It doesn’t matter if Davidson provoked him. He knows what’s on the line, and he should’ve done better. Exactly what Bowles said.

And this is a tough blow to his case. The undrafted Colorado safety has been scrapping for a depth and special-teams spot, and he’d started stacking some decent August reps. The logs have him with 3 solo tackles this preseason, decent enough to hand around. But tonight might’ve changed that. Now, his film also shows a PI from earlier in camp and an ejection. And these are two red flags that’ll come up in every cut-room conversation.

And context matters after a marginal loss. Tampa dropped a 23–19 nail-biter while getting out-gained 375–241, out-rushed 105–45, and out-possessed 35:38 to 24:22. Exactly the margins where special teams and depth defenders can flip hidden yardage. Instead, they had to close the night a safety short after the flag and the ejection.

Bowles hasn’t budged on this stuff: hustle is fine, but game-day discipline is the line in ink. When he called it “inexcusable,” that was him drawing a boundary. For Sanders, the next 48 hours are about sitting eye-to-eye in accountability meetings, sweating through special-teams reps, and showing he can throttle back the fuse when things get chippy.

As for Todd Bowles, this was just one of the many things that went wrong tonight.

Everything that went wrong for Todd Bowles

Take the ejection off the board, and the Bucs still left chances all over the field. The 23–19 final looks tight, but the box score tells a harsher story: Tampa got shoved around up front (out-rushed 105–45), never dictated pace (Bills held the ball for nearly 36 minutes), and dinked-and-dunked while Buffalo hit chunk plays (5.2 yards per pass vs. 8.4).

Sure, there were silver linings. Not many, but they were there. Connor Bazelak kept drives alive (12-of-19, 107 yards, a score) and Tez Johnson created daylight (8 grabs, 58 yards, TD). But of course, the bigger picture leaned towards Buffalo. 375 yards to 241, 25 first downs to 18, and Tampa’s lone giveaway went unanswered.

The real kicker was in the margins: coverage units, field position, flags. That’s exactly where depth guys and special-teamers are supposed to tilt the field, and it just didn’t happen.

The bottom line? Bowles’ message lined up with the stat sheet. This roster lives and dies on the edges: move the sticks (and to their credit, Tampa went 8-for-13 on third down), protect the football, win the hidden-yardage game, and above all, steer clear of the exact thing the head coach circled in bold: throwing punches.

And that brings us back to Shilo. Do you think he ruined whatever chances he had of making the 53-man roster? What’s next for him?