By: J.T. Olson
Special to Sports Talk Florida
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers start training camp today. Over the last two days rookies and veterans have reported and the team is ready to hit the ground running. As of today, football is officially back!
However, before players take the field today the team met last night. The Bucs social media team put out a video last night of head coach Todd Bowles addressing the team. He began with a message that resonated with me and one that I think fans should take to heart.
Bowles wanted to set the standard for what the expectations for the Bucs should be in 2024. He told his team the following. “The expectations for us shouldn’t be just the division, it should be the Super Bowl”.
Now I’m sure every team has aspersions of winning the Super Bowl. After all, no one comes into the season with a goal of winning six games. But most teams don’t have realistic expectations of actually doing so.
Of course, most coaches aren’t coming off back to back division titles. Most teams didn’t win a playoff last year. And on top of that, the team is more athletic and talented than they have been in previous years.
This is exactly the position that Bowles and the Buccaneers are in. So when he says that the expectation is the Super Bowl then no one should write it off as hyperbole or coach speak. This is a real and reasonable goal.
This might seem ridiculous to some. After all, many power rankings have the Bucs in the middle of the pack or lower and many project them to have a losing record. It’s as if they didn’t learn from overlooking this group last year and are trying to double down on an opinion that was always uninformed.
These same media outlets were convinced the Buccaneers were one of the worst teams in the NFL last year. They wrote them off before the year even began. 18 weeks and a playoff win later, Bowles and the Bucs proved that they were actually one of the best.
Now they bring their homegrown stars back on contract extensions as well as improve the secondary and offensive line. So the logical thought process by national media is that the Bucs will be worse? I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t make any sense to me.
Am I telling you that I am picking the Bucs to win it all as we go into training camp? No, I’m not. There are too many unknowns going into the year and the Buccaneers have too much to prove. But I am here to tell you that it’s not crazy to think that they could win it all.
This Buccaneers team should be a playoff team. Once they get to that point, there’s no reason to think they can’t go on a run. After all, they beat Philadelphia last year in the playoffs and gave Detroit all they could handle at their place. There’s no reason to think they can’t build on that.
I have been critical of Bowles in the past. And as an evaluator I am always someone who dislikes over hyping your own guys. But Bowles is absolutely right here. The Buccaneers are one of the best teams in the NFL and winning the Super Bowl should be their expectation this year.
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