INTRO: I hope everyone managed to survive Hurricane Helene as it hit Florida and produced flooding and high winds in neighboring states. And I hope that everyone is on the road to recovery, but understanding that tough times are still ahead for some Bucs fans and Floridians who have felt the dramatic effects of the storm. I wish this SR’s Fab 5 column was filled with better news, but you turn to me and Pewter Report for our objective analysis on your Tampa Bay Buccaneers – and that’s what I’ve delivered in this one. The headline says it all – but I’m still sticking to my 10-win projection.
FAB 1.Bucs Don’t Look Like A Super Bowl Contender
Nothing can derail a season faster than injuries, especially to star players.
On Sunday against Denver, the Bucs didn’t have a pair of first-round picks and second-round picks on the field. And what a huge difference that made in hindsight.
Bucs DT Vita Vea – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR
Tampa Bay’s starting defensive tackles, Vita Vea and Calijah Kancey, were both first-round picks – and impact players. Without them in the game, Denver’s interior offensive line, which truthfully consists of just average talent, didn’t allow a single pressure up the middle and helped pave the way for 136 yards on the ground after averaging just 81.5 yards per game coming into the game.
The Bucs were also without All-Pro safety Antoine Winfield Jr. and right tackle Luke Goedeke – both of whom were second-round picks. Winfield had six sacks, six forced fumbles, four fumble recoveries and three interceptions last year en route to becoming the highest-paid defensive back in NFL history over the summer.
Coaches like head coach Todd Bowles hate using injuries as an excuse, as other healthy players are charged with the responsibility of stepping up and playing well in their absence. Next man up, right?
But I’m telling you that injuries can be the reason teams’ seasons can get derailed – fast.
Yes, the Bucs mustered up a win in Detroit against the Lions despite these injuries, but having success for multiple games without star players just isn’t likely or sustainable.
It’s no coincidence that Tampa Bay’s two lone Super Bowl seasons featured two of the healthiest rosters in Bucs history. In 2002, the only starter who was on injured reserve that season and missed Super Bowl XXXVII was nose tackle Booger McFarland, who was just an average player at the time.
The nose tackle position in Monte Kiffin’s Tampa 2 defense just wasn’t an important, featured player, either. That’s why Chartric Darby and Buck Gurley were easily able to fill in and McFarland wasn’t missed at all.
In 2020, the Bucs were incredibly healthy again. The team lost backup tight end O.J. Howard to a torn Achilles early in the year, but still had Rob Gronkowski and Cam Brate and never missed a beat at the position.
The only starter who missed Super Bowl LV was right guard Alex Cappa, who fractured his ankle in the Wild Card win over Washington. Aaron Stinnie stepped in and was able to get the job done, as the Bucs won their second ever Super Bowl.
If you don’t think injuries can destroy a season, look no further than 2021 when the best team in Tampa Bay history won 13 games, but late-season injuries to wide receiver Chris Godwin against the Saints in December and right tackle Tristan Wirfs in a Wild Card win over the Eagles doomed the Bucs against the Rams in the 2021 NFC Divisional playoffs. Tampa Bay trailed 21-3 at halftime as its offense was sputtering and stagnant, and despite a valiant comeback attempt in the fourth quarter, the Bucs couldn’t beat the Rams.
Despite only playing three games in the 2024 season, the Bucs are really banged up right now. A total of 17 – SEVENTEEN – players were listed on Thursday’s injury report. Winfield won’t play with his foot injury, neither will Kancey with his calf injury. Reserve tight end Ko Kieft will be out with an ankle injury and defensive tackle Vita Vea will likely be a game-time decision with his knee injury.
The fact that running back Bucky Irving, the team’s leading rusher, pulled a hamstring in practice on Wednesday and didn’t practice on Thursday doesn’t bode well, either. Even if Irving plays on Sunday, the injury could limit his effectiveness or possibly get worse.
While the Bucs are on course to get Goedeke back for Sunday’s game against the Eagles, left tackle Tristan Wirfs was limited this week with a knee injury, which isn’t good. Both starting receivers – Godwin (neck) and Mike Evans (knee) – were also limited in practice. If any of them – or all three – play in the game, they won’t be near 100%.
Eight other players were listed on the injury report, but are expected to play: center Graham Barton (ankle), inside linebacker K.J. Britt (knee), cornerback Jamel Dean (knee), outside linebacker Yaya Diaby (abdomen), defensive tackle Greg Gaines (ankle), defensive tackle Will Gholston (knee), defensive tackle Logan Hall (foot) and wide receiver Kameron Johnson (ankle).
This isn’t to suggest that the Bucs can’t win against the Eagles or won’t win. If the team has other players step up and make plays like Tampa Bay did in Detroit, it is possible to overcome some of these injuries again for another game or two. But if the Bucs continue to get banged up and bit by the injury bug, it’s just not sustainable over the course of a season.
There is zero track record in Tampa Bay – and likely elsewhere around the league – where a team has overcome multiple injuries, especially to key contributors, to have a successful season, let alone a Super Bowl season.
Keep in mind that the Bucs saw every single starter except left guard Matt Feiler on offense not miss a single game last year and the team still finished 9-8.
Not 10-7, and certainly not 11-6.
One of the healthiest Bucs teams in recent memory finished above .500 thanks to a 9-0 win at Carolina – in Week 18. This young Tampa Bay team is still growing and developing, and the margin for error with the Bucs is small on a weekly basis. They need to get healthy in a hurry.
Temper your expectations, Bucs fans. Certainly until this team gets much closer to full strength – if it can.
FAB 2. Lack Of Pass Rush Usually Equals Lack Of Wins In Tampa Bay
Tampa Bay’s pass rush has underwhelmed to start the 2024 season. The Bucs have just two sacks through the first three games, and that’s astonishingly bad for a Todd Bowles defense.
It’s also not a good sign of things to come. Typically when the Bucs underachieve in getting to the quarterback, the team underachieves in the win column, too.
Bowles’ defense is on pace for a paltry 11 sacks this year, but surely the Bucs will finish with way more than that. Yet even if Tampa Bay averaged two sacks per game over the remaining 14 games on the schedule, the team would only finish with 30 sacks.
That would be nearly 17 sacks below the 46.8 sacks that the Bucs have averaged under Bowles since he took over as the defensive play-caller in 2019.
Sacks don’t tell the entire story, but they have had a correlation to playoff appearances. The Bucs went 12 years without a playoff appearance between 2008-19 and in every year but one – 2019 when Bowles came aboard – the team did not surpass 38 sacks.
Bucs Sacks Since 2008
48 sacks – 2023 – 9-8 record
44 sacks – 2022 – 8-9 record
47 sacks – 2021 – 13-4 record
48 sacks – 2020 – 11-5 record
47 sacks – 2019 – 7-9 record
38 sacks – 2018 – 5-11 record
22 sacks – 2017 – 5-11 record
38 sacks – 2016 – 9-7 record
38 sacks – 2015 – 6-10 record
36 sacks – 2014 – 2-14 record
35 sacks – 2013 – 4-12 record
27 sacks – 2012 – 7-9 record
23 sacks – 2011 – 4-12 record
26 sacks – 2010 – 10-6 record
28 sacks – 2009 – 3-13 record
29 sacks – 2008 – 9-7 record
Sacks aren’t everything. The Bucs beat the Lions by pressuring Jared Goff, who threw a pair of interceptions, 23 times and hitting him 11 times. Tampa Bay didn’t sack him once in Week 2.
But sometimes pressures can be a misleading stat. A defensive player can still record a pressure on a touchdown pass, whereas a sack brings finality to play that favors the defense and usually comes with lost yardage.
Sacks do come in bunches, so it’s too early to panic in Tampa Bay. Bowles is good at scheming up sacks for blitzing linebackers and defensive backs, too. But it’s not a good sign when the team’s leading sacker from a year ago, Yaya Diaby, has yet to record a sack this season and has just two QB hits despite leading the team with 15 total pressures. Diaby had 7.5 sacks last year as a rookie.
Missing injured defensive tackles Vita Vea and Calijah Kancey, who combined for 9.5 sacks, isn’t helping. Neither is missing injured safety Antoine Winfield Jr., who is a Bowles chess piece and had a career-high six sacks last year.
The Bucs don’t have a proven, veteran pass rusher for the first time since 2018 when Jason Pierre-Paul arrived via a trade. That year, he had 12.5 sacks and broke the team’s double-digit sack curse that had plagued the Bucs since 2006. Shaq Barrett was added in free agency a year later and wound up with 19.5 sacks to set a new single-season franchise record and lead the NFL that year.
With zero combined sacks so far from Diaby, Vea, Kancey and Winfield, it’s hard to see the Bucs getting back to their 46-sack average. This team might be lucky to hit 40 sacks at the current rate – and history tells us what happens as a result, unfortunately.
FAB 3. Bad Losses Typically Don’t Happen In Bucs’ Super Bowl Runs
The Bucs have Super Bowl aspirations this year, head coach Todd Bowles said as much on the eve of training camp.
But this year’s Bucs squad has already allowed something to happen that didn’t happen in the franchise’s two Super Bowl seasons in 2002 and 2020.
In 2020, Tampa Bay lost five games, including a 20-19 stinker in Chicago on Thursday Night Football. The Bucs had no business losing that game, but that was a loss that was only decided by one point, and one the team had every chance to win. The Bears would eventually finish 8-8 that year and miss the playoffs.
On Sunday, the previously winless Broncos – led by rookie quarterback Bo Nix – barnstormed the Bucs, 26-7, getting on top early, 14-0 in the first quarter and breezing to a big upset. Tampa Bay was never in that game from the outset, which makes the loss to Denver far worse than the team’s loss at Chicago back in 2020.
The other losses during the Bucs’ most recent Super Bowl team came at the hands of the Saints, 34-23 on opening day, and a pair of 27-24 defeats at the hands of the Chiefs and Rams. Tampa Bay also got humiliated at home by New Orleans, 38-3, but that was against a Saints team that won 12 games that year, swept the Bucs and won the NFC South.
That Super Bowl team didn’t have as bad of a loss as this year’s Bucs team has already suffered at the hands of the Broncos – a semi-talented team that likely won’t make the playoffs this year.
In 2002, which was the year the Bucs won their first Super Bowl, Tampa Bay only had four losses. The first came on opening day in overtime, 26-20, against the Saints in Jon Gruden’s first game as head coach. Tampa Bay also lost at New Orleans, 23-20, to a 9-7 Saints team.
The other two defeats were 20-10 at Philadelphia against a 12-4 Eagles team and 17-7 at home to a Steelers team that went 10-5-1. So in 2002, the Bucs didn’t suffer a loss to a lesser team. Certainly not one that even came close to the loss at the hands of the Broncos last Sunday.
So the defeat at the hands of Denver could be a bad harbinger of things to come. In order to make the Super Bowl this year, the Bucs would have to overcome this embarrassing loss, because the other two championship teams in Tampa Bay never had to deal with losing to such an inferior team.
FAB 4. Can Todd Bowles Continue To Level Up As A Coach?
NFL head coaches can grow and improve over time. Dick Vermeil was a very good coach in Philadelphia for seven years, but had to get fired and move on to St. Louis before he won a Super Bowl ring in 1999.
Andy Reid spent twice as much time in Philly – 14 years – but failed to win a championship in the Eagles’ lone Super Bowl appearance in 2004 until he moved on to Kansas City, where he’s won three Super Bowls since taking over the Chiefs in 2013.
Bucs head coach Todd Bowles helped the team win Super Bowl LV as defensive coordinator and has taken some small steps in the right direction since taking over for Bruce Arians, who abruptly retired in late March of 2022. Bowles is on his third offensive coordinator in three years, which is not ideal, but he did take the team from an 8-9 record in 2022 to 9-8 last year.
More importantly, the Bucs won the division in each of those seasons, and then won a home Wild Card playoff game last year, beating the Eagles, 32-9, after losing that game in 2022 to the Cowboys, 31-14. Tampa Bay got revenge for a Week 3 loss to Philadelphia in the postseason, and Bowles’ defensive masterpiece of a game plan was a big reason why.
As I wrote about in a previous SR’s Fab 5, Bowles has exorcized some demons in Tampa Bay since becoming head coach. Bowles swept the Saints in 2022, which was quite a feat, as Arians only went 1-5 versus Sean Payton’s team in the regular season. In fact, Bowles is 3-1 against New Orleans as head coach.
He also finally beat the Rams in 2022, as Los Angeles had won three straight games against Tampa Bay, including a crushing playoff victory over the Bucs in 2021. And after getting swept by the Lions last year, including in the NFC Divisional playoffs, Bowles and the Bucs finally got a win at Detroit in Week 2.
Bowles has shown the ability to level up over the past two seasons, and the team looked like it was incredibly focused following the win over the Lions, which led to a 2-0 start to the season. But that was until kickoff last Sunday.
The Bucs looked uninspired in 26-7 loss to the previously unbeaten Broncos. As Bowles accurately stated, Payton and his staff outcoached Tampa Bay’s staff, and Denver’s players outplayed and outhit the Bucs.
That kind of effort or outcome simply can’t happen to a supposed Super Bowl contender. And it shows that Bowles hasn’t grown enough yet to prevent those ugly losses from continuing to happen under his watch.
I’m a big believer in players having to fire themselves up. Coaches can only do so much in terms of motivation. It has to come from the players on the field who play the game.
Bowles didn’t miss a tackle or give up a touchdown last week. His players did.
At the same time, he’s responsible for every element of the team’s defeat by virtue of being the head coach. So whether it is from a motivation standpoint, a game-plan standpoint or an in-game adjustment standpoint, Bowles needs to continue to level up his game, especially with a tough stretch of games coming up.
Not only against the likes of the Eagles, Falcons, Saints, Ravens, Chiefs and 49ers – but also against the likes of some coaches that have given the Bucs problems and out-coached him in the past like Reid, Dennis Allen, John Harbaugh and Kyle Shanahan.
Going 4-2 in that stretch of games – or at least no worse than 3-3 – would prove that Bowles perhaps has what it takes to take his team past the Wild Card round of the postseason.
FAB 5. 10 Wins Ain’t Bad, Bucs Fans
I’ve gone on record saying that the Bucs’ Super Bowl window is open this year, and that Tampa Bay will improve and win 10 games in the regular season. But I don’t think this year’s Bucs team is a Super Bowl-caliber squad.
Certainly not after losing a game against Denver that Tampa Bay had no business losing, right?
I’m not ruling out a Super Bowl season this year, but I’m certainly not forecasting it. Not this season.
I’ve firmly maintained that next year’s Bucs team might be better positioned to make a more legit Super Bowl run. Second-year players like Yaya Diaby and Calijah Kancey will have had the chance to really take a step forward after this season, while rookies like Graham Barton, Tykee Smith and Bucky Irving get the seasoning and experience they need this year.
Throw in yet another draft class and a few more free agents in 2025 and I believe Tampa Bay will be better positioned to contend for a Super Bowl next year. Hopefully Liam Coen’s offense takes off and he’s an even better play-caller in 2025.
I just want to see the Bucs take another step this year and not regress. That means winning another game or two in the regular season and advancing to the NFC Divisional playoffs again or perhaps the NFC Championship Game.
Even though I didn’t necessarily see the 26-7 loss to Denver coming, I didn’t rule out a bad loss or two when forecasting the team to have 10 wins and seven defeats in the 2024 campaign. Some of you were way more optimistic, projecting 12 or even 13 wins.
Maybe this Bucs team really learns from last Sunday’s loss, gets healthy and goes on a roll. For the sake of the team and the Tampa Bay fans, I hope that happens. I didn’t think the Bucs would win the Super Bowl in 2020. I thought they would improve in Tom Brady’s first year in red and pewter, but I didn’t think the Bucs would win the Super Bowl until 2021.
I was wrong, as Tampa Bay surprised me in 2020 with eight straight wins to finish the season and the Super Bowl LV Lombardi Trophy. I’m happy to be wrong again.
But this year’s Bucs team seems incomplete compared to the 2020 squad.
Ten wins ain’t bad, though – and should be another step in the right direction.
