Do the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have a “three-headed” monster in the backfield?

“Sean did an outstanding job,” head coach Todd Bowles said after the game. “We had some good runs in the first half (but) some penalties, we shot ourselves in the foot so many times that we had to keep throwing. But in the second half, between Sean and Bucky, with Sean particularly stepping in – he has a lot of speed.

“This is the Sean Tucker we thought we were getting when we got him last year, and he’s getting his money’s worth.”

A lot has happened with Irving on the field so far this season, and it’s hard to imagine Tucker going back to an almost non-existent role in the offense after this performance in Week Six. All of this raises the question of how touches will be distributed out of the backcourt when White returns to action. It might be difficult to handle three different defenders, but on Monday Bowles looked like the team was trying to find a way.

“It’s definitely worthy of him making this a three-headed monster,” Bowles said. “He took advantage of his opportunities. He ran away from some tackles and some linebackers, he ran through the hole, he cut back, he made plays, he caught the ball way out of the backfield so we got a three-pointer. “Monster.”

Further complicating matters in terms of distributing the football – in a good way – Baker Mayfield is off to a blistering start with a 109.4 passer rating and an NFL-leading 15 touchdown passes. He threw four more against the Saints on Sunday. And no offensive coordinator would ever consider minimizing the roles of wideouts Chris Godwin and Mike Evans. Perhaps there will be some sort of ebb and flow as the Bucs operate with the hot hand (or hands) in the backfield and game situations dictate how much they rely on what appears to be a rapidly improving run game.

That was the case with the Saints. After a wild first half, the Bucs began to pull away in the second half and built a double-digit lead. Irving and Tucker kept breaking off chain-moving runs and that allowed the Bucs to keep the ball away from the Saints and run out the clock.

“We broke up some runs so it was a little easier to run the ball,” Bowles said. “Between Bucky (Irving) and Sean (Tucker), they broke up some runs outside and set up some blocks pretty well, and it worked for us, so we stuck with it.”

As of Monday morning, Bowles had no updates on the status of the team’s injured players, including White. The team has an extra day to prepare for the Baltimore Ravens, who they play in week seven on Monday night. As the week progresses, it will become clearer whether White is headed for a quick return, as the Bucs would hope. After that, I’ll need some more time to figure out how the Bucs will feed their new “three-headed monster.”