TAMPA, Fla. — The waiting is the hardest part.

And now, that wait is over.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers kick off the season against Minnesota, and ready or not, the new-look Bucs will take the field.

What You Need To Know

  •  The Tampa Bay Bucs kickoff the season Sunday on the road against the Minnesota Vikings

  •  The team features a revamped roster that turned it from the oldest in the league to one of the youngest

  •  Baker Mayfield takes over as the starting quarterback after Tom Brady retired

“It’s finally here, yeah. It’s what you work all year for,” quarterback Baker Mayfield said. “The real thing is finally here. We’re ready to finally go out and play somebody else for real.”

It’s about to get real, real. It’s a new offense. A new quarterback. And a revamped roster injected with a lot of youth, turning the Bucs from the oldest team in the league to one of the youngest.

“We feel like we’re great in a lot of areas, but you’ve got to play the games to be sure,” head coach Todd Bowles said.

Preseason games provided glimpses of what this Bucs team will look like this year. As for its strengths and weaknesses, those will play out the first part of the season.

“Obviously, you’ve got to get a lot of kinks out of the way the first couple of games,” Bowles said. “The trick is to win while you’re doing it. We feel like we’ve got a lot of strengths and until we settle in on what we are in week 4 or 5, we’ll see.”

The past three seasons, it was obvious what Tampa Bay’s strengths were. When Tom Brady is your quarterback, he set the tone. Brady’s gone and so are the national expectations. The experts have spoken and they’re not expecting much from the Bucs this season. When the GOAT retired, he took the national spotlight with him. But this Tampa Bay team isn’t ready to dim the lights just yet.

“It’s football,” Mayfield said. “It’s the highest level you can play at, so there are going to be ebbs and flows, ups and downs during the game. We’re built to handle that adversity and I’m excited to see how we do.”