Cincinnati Bengals To Face Rare Opponent in Season Opener at Paycor Stadium

The Cincinnati Bengals will open the 2026 season at home against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at 1 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 13, per a report from Jordan Schultz.

The game features a matchup of No. 1 draft picks with Joe Burrow (2020) squaring off against Baker Mayfield (2017) for the fourth time.

Burrow has yet to beat Mayfield, losing three times to him as the starter quarterback of the Cleveland Browns (twice in 2020 and once in 2021).

Mayfield is 3-1 with 16 touchdowns and four interceptions in four career starts at Paycor Stadium.

This will be the ninth time Burrow has faced another quarterback who was selected with the No. 1 pick.

He’s 4-4 in those matchups with wins against Jared Goff (2021), Matthew Stafford (2023) and Trevor Lawrence twice (2021 and 2025).

The other loss came against Alex Smith (2020) in the game in which Burrow tore his ACL as a rookie.

This will mark the third time during Zac Taylor’s tenure the Bengals have opened against an NFC opponent but just the 10th time in franchise history.

The Bengals faced the Vikings at home in the 2021 opener and played at Seattle in Taylor’s debut game in 2019.

It’s the second time the Bengals have opened against the Buccaneers. The first was in 1980 in Forrest Gregg’s debut game as head coach, which Cincinnati lost at home 17-12.

Tampa Bay has won five consecutive season openers, three of which have been on the road.

The Buccaneers are coming off an 8-9 season in which they tied the Carolina Panthers for first place in the NFC South but lost the division title via the tiebreaker.

Tampa Bay leads the all-time series against the Bengals 7-6, and the Buccaneers are 5-3 in Cincinnati.

The Bengals have won their last three games against Tampa Bay – 34-23 in 2022, 37-34 in 2018 and 14-13 in 2014.

Earlier this week at his news conference, Taylor said the season opener is the first thing he looks at when the schedule is officially announced.

“Really just the first game,” he said. “It’s interesting to see how the rest of it plays out. But again, we’ve all experienced so many seasons. This season can evolve so differently in terms of teams that are hot at different points of the season, so you don’t read anything into that.

“You try to anticipate some weather. That’s always a fun thing as a team playing up north,” he continued. “We like to play in colder weather here and get warm-weather teams up here. So that’s something I always peek at — who could be coming up here when it’s maybe a little colder and (they’re) not used to it and what type of weather you can anticipate. I think that’s just the former quarterback in me. We check the weather every day leading up to the game to see if it’s going to rain or not or snow or any of that stuff.”

Unfortunately for Taylor and the Bengals, the Buccaneers won’t be traveling from Florida to a chilly Paycor Stadium.

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