By – J.T. Olsen
Bucs Report – Special to Sports Talk Florida
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are in a difficult spot. After starting the season 3-1 they have now fallen to 4-4 on the year. That’s to say they have lost three of the last four games, including a pair of divisional games to the Atlanta Falcons.
For a team that has playoff expectations and Super Bowl aspirations this is hard to stomach. The Bucs are not playing good football right now and there is blame to go all around. Between injuries, poor play from veteran players and questionable coaching decisions the Bucs do not look like a good team.
This has led to calls for change at head coach and essentially every other thing you can think of from many fans. This is understandable with Todd Bowles not having a track record of sustained success as a head coach and the team seemingly trending in the wrong direction. Even though I don’t agree with firing Bowles at this point, I get the frustrations fans have.
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However, we collectively need to take a deep breath. The consensus seems to be that the sky is falling for the Buccaneers, and that is just simply not the case. This season is not over, this team should not be tanking and you don’t have to be thinking about next year yet.
If we’re being honest with ourselves, the Bucs are pretty much exactly where we expected them to be at this point in the year. Granted it hasn’t looked the way we expected to for a lot of the year. In fact, at times it has looked down right ugly. However, when we all evaluated the schedule before the season started, we expected around a 5-5 record going into the bye week. The Bucs for a position to do exactly that.
At 4-4 now, the Bucs just have to win one of the next two games before the bye. After that, the team should be getting Mike Evans back from injury and they have a favorable schedule down the stretch where they will be the more talented than the team they play against in the last seven games. It’s hard to deal with the week to week frustrations of the team when you’re in the thick of it, but that was always the expectation this year.
This is not to sugarcoat the problems that the Bucs have. The issues on defense go further than just communication problems and a lack of focus. The Buccaneers have lost a critical piece of their defense and we are seeing the result with seemingly every blown play on that side of the ball.
SirVocea Dennis started the year as a rotational player with K.J. Britt. However, it became clear within the first week or two that Dennis was the starting linebacker and Britt had all but lost his job to him. Then Dennis got injured which forced Britt to play a larger role, including coverage snaps where we always knew he wasn’t very good.
And while Dennis might be back for a late playoff push, the Bucs aren’t going to make it that far unless something is done. General Manager Jason Licht needs to make a move for a linebacker, even if it is just a depth player to play on passing downs. There is a massive hole in the middle of the defense and its name is KJ Britt.
If Bowles and the defense can get some help there and just be average on that side of the ball, the offense has been one of the best in the NFL and should be able to lead the Bucs to where they want to go. The offensive line is coming together very nicely and it has resulted in a strong running game. New offensive coordinator Liam Coen is doing a very good job designing this passing attack and Baker Mayfield has played well for most of the season.
Even with the loss of Chris Godwin for the year with a dislocated ankle, I have confidence in this offense. And I even have a lot of confidence in the talent on the defensive side of the ball. After all there are still six starters on defense from the Super Bowl winning team in 2020. Talent wise, the Bucs have enough.
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At this point it is just supplementing what they have with a complimentary linebacker, getting healthy and cleaning up correctable mistakes such as poor tackling and miscommunication on defense. If they can do even some of those things then I would still expect a late season run and the Bucs to be a dangerous out in the playoffs. I’d still go as far as to say that the Bucs are one of the best teams in the NFC.
But we all have to weather this storm. Things aren’t about to get easier as the Bucs travel to Kansas City for Monday night football and then host the San Francisco 49ers. Over the next two weeks, things could very well get worse before they get better.
I’m just here to remind you that this would be okay. The Buccaneers just have to focus on improving themselves where they can and the results should reflect that on the back end of the schedule. Even if they fall to 4-6 going into the bye, no one should be giving up on this team.
Now if things don’t improve and the Bucs can’t go on a run in the last seven games, then I will be more than happy to write about replacement coaches and draft prospects. But we are not to that point yet. Everything is still in grasp for the Bucs and no one should lose their minds just because they are doing what we always expected them to do.
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