If The Bucs Could Win One-Score Games…
November 15th, 2024
Bucs coach Todd Bowles.
This is very interesting to Joe on many levels and suggests the Bucs are very close to having a very good team.
Unfortunately, Joe doesn’t believe the Bucs will get to showcase that talent this year.
So the Bucs have been in four, one-score games. The defense has choked away a game in three of them, including the past two games against the defending Super Bowl champs and the defending NFC champs (49ers).
If the Bucs had won all four of those one-score games, they’d have the best record in the NFC (8-2), a half-game behind the Lions for the overall top seed.
Even if the Bucs went 3-1 in those one-score games, the Bucs would be 7-3 and everyone in the Tampa Bay area would be talking about hosting a wild card round game.
Instead, the defensive-minded head coach’s defense has played lousy ball and has painted the team into a corner, needing probably six wins in the final seven games to grab a wild card berth.
November 15th, 2024 at 4:25 am
The one that I can’t get over is if this team was better at coin tosses, we’d be 6-4 and leading the division
November 15th, 2024 at 4:47 am
If the Bucs could win one score games. If my dad had boobs he’d be my mother! If only. Sad truth is, you are what your record says you are. Good teams find ways to win, see Chiefs. Bad teams find ways to lose, see Bucs. The Bucs are a bad team.
November 15th, 2024 at 4:51 am
Hodad, “The Bucs are a bad team”. Go back to bed Hodad.
November 15th, 2024 at 4:59 am
Sleep well for a few more hours and then roll off the other side of the bed. Since you seem to have gotten up on the wrong side this morning.
November 15th, 2024 at 5:03 am
I can’t believe that the Bucs and/or their support is in panic mode. Mark my words, the team will win out the season and make a dramatic push in the play offs. They are to good not to! Mike Evens will return and everything will come together. Keeping it real in Ireland.
November 15th, 2024 at 5:11 am
lol… we need a coin toss coach …. to learn how to win the coin flip
November 15th, 2024 at 5:40 am
Agreed. If the Bucs come back from the bye winning and other teams lose, we got this. It would be great to see large point wins too, shut-outs.
Irish Laughter – Agreed. Mike will be back and the momentum will be strong.
Wirfs will be back in a few weeks too! Probably Panthers or Raiders game.
November 15th, 2024 at 6:37 am
I think the Glazers see we have a competitive team but incompetent HC. Bowles is just out there guessing at everything hoping something sticks. Reminds me of Willie Taggert at USF. Team didn’t take off until the players stopped listening to him. When he got to FSU and had to actually game plan, the truth came out.
November 15th, 2024 at 6:42 am
Reality bites. The Bucs are a bad team. We were fed hype about how great they would be this season. Hmm, not so much. The offense is doing well. The defense is high school at best. Change in the FO and HC has to happen. The rose colored glasses have to come off: Britt is a special teamer ONLY; JTS is done (why did Licht waste a 1st round pick on him?); upgrade on the D-line has to happen; the linebacker room has to improve (these people are not NFL ready—-poor, poor talent evaluation). WOW! What a mess.
November 15th, 2024 at 7:46 am
Kenton Smith Says:
November 15th, 2024 at 4:51 am
Hodad, “The Bucs are a bad team”. Go back to bed Hodad.
You may not like the fact that this team sucks and is soft as Charmin but some of us prefer to live in the real world.
November 15th, 2024 at 8:19 am
I blame the losses on the defensive coaching staff, and Todd Bowles scheme that every team has figured out. The lame zone that our player’s aren’t good at that leaves wide open holes all over the field. In all my years of being a football fan I’ve never seen it before with other teams and this is the second time with the Bucs. I never thought it would get this bad again on defense. Todd needs to hire a defensive coordinator or get fired. Glazers need to step in
November 15th, 2024 at 9:02 am
BucU – “you may not like the fact “. Facts would be something like “we’ve beaten the top 2 teams in the NFC this year. Or, we took last year’s Super Bowl combatants right down to the wire”. Opinions would be something like “this team sucks and is soft as Charmin”. Go back to bed BucU.
November 15th, 2024 at 9:31 am
Proudbucsfan … ‘I blame the losses on the defensive coaching staff, and Todd Bowles scheme that every team has figured out.’
It’s easy to blame the losses solely on ‘the defensive coaching staff and Todd Bowles scheme’, but there’s a LOT more to it IMO. Is there anyone in Bucsville who believes that this defense is even close to being as talented as what we fielded in 2020 & 2021? Bowles’ scheme worked fine back then (Top-10 defense both years), even against the quality teams we played in the 2020 playoffs. The coaches are pretty much the same, and schemes don’t really become antiquated, but they do have to be adjusted for talent level. So why is our defense struggling so much this year?
Personally I think it starts with a lower level of talent AND injuries. This team lacks size up-front, and it also lacks speed for the most part. Because of injuries we’ve had to plug in several very inexperienced Practice Squad players. As a consequence, it looks to me like Bowles & his assistants are modifying the ‘scheme’ to compensate for the lack of talent & speed that it’s always depended on. The significant increase in the number of explosive plays by opponents says a LOT.
That said though, we’ve played a number of Top-10 offenses in the first half of the season. In these next 7 games we’ll be facing primarily Bottom-10 offenses, and that SHOULD result in our defense doing better than it has been.
November 15th, 2024 at 9:46 am
Defense Rules:
This is where we disagrees, I think a lot of the woes are from the inexperience, lack of quality players and injuries on defense but I disagree that the defensive team is adjusting the scheme to compensate. In fact, I think that is the biggesf problem, Bowles isn’t adjusting the scheme as he should to compensate for all those practice squad players and that is causing a bunch of issues as other, more skilled players, need to make up that difference and end up out of position.
November 15th, 2024 at 10:12 am
Mike Evans is a good WR but he has rarely been a game changing WR. He is also coming back from a torn hamstring so how effective will he be. And who is to say he won’t tear it again as he has done before in the past. But the Bucs don’t need Evans to come back and play like a WR god. They just need to improve on defense and make a stop when they have too.
November 15th, 2024 at 10:19 am
Irish, with your beliefs in the Bucs immediate future this year, I’ll bet you specialize in finding Leprechaun gold over there.
November 15th, 2024 at 10:42 am
Mike Evans changes how defenses have to play, and he is also a red zone threat, as evidenced by the 100 TDs he has scored. I’m not sure what you mean by game-changing. He may not be Chase or Jefferson, but there are not many of these guys out there.
November 15th, 2024 at 10:58 am
I just know that first Falcons game is coming back to bite us. I hate to say it but I think we will be 4-1 with Saints Panthers left to play. 6-1 gets us in, but we will drop one of those last 2 to break our hearts and miss the postseason.
November 15th, 2024 at 11:21 am
If they could just win a game. At least they’re winning this week since they’re off. I’m sure Bowles will screw that up somehow.
November 15th, 2024 at 11:23 am
It’s as if the fans care more about the team then the Glazers the coaching staff & the front office at times.
November 15th, 2024 at 11:49 am
Todd Bowles is a freaking genius!
His defense is the best in the NFL!
Teams are scared to play us!
Baker is better than Brady!
That was for you Kenton Smith.
Now I know what being insane feels like.
Go Bucs!
November 15th, 2024 at 12:42 pm
You can’t win with only one side of the ball performing. Todd started the year with no margin for error on defense. Of the eleven starters only 8 or 9 were 1st string talent. The injuries were just too much to shore up. LVD has lost a step, Britt never had a step, Dean always hurt half the year, Kancey hurt plus too light, Vea part time, Hall still learning, JTS a disaster. Then he has to fill in with practice squad guys. This is not even the 23 defense, it’s just a shadow. On top of all that, Todd makes bad clock and in the moment decisions. Todd was not dealt a good hand here. I can’t defend his many mistakes but it was going to be tough without a bunch of luck on the injury front and hoping some of the young guys developed. It’s not going to hurt my feelings if they sack Todd, but it might not be the best decision. The team was at least a year away from really competing without another infusion of talent. 60 million in dead cap paid to guys not on the field is a heavy burden for the best of coaches to overcome. Todd, by the way, is not one of them.
November 15th, 2024 at 1:23 pm
Badbucs … I like your analysis, except for the ‘You can’t win with only one side of the ball performing’. Bucs’ fans are strange in that they’ll piss on the defense all day long, but the offense can do no wrong. And in about half of our games, I agree with them. But in 5 games, our offense left a lot on the table that hurt us:
o Lions win (20-16): Sorry but the Lions walked all over us, yet we won because the defense only allowed 16 points to a very high-powered offense. Bucs offense sputtered much of the game, and the defense ended up saving the win.
o Falcons loss (36-30 in OT): Bucs’ offense had 2 chances late in the 4th qtr to win the game. They fumbled once (led to our defense intercepting Cousins to give the ball back to the offense), then our offense punted after 3 plays on the last drive (defense gave up a FG to allow Falcons to tie it). Damned defense.
o Falcons loss (31-26): Commendably the Bucs’ offense scored 26 points, but they also committed 3 turnovers. Two of those TOs gave the Falcons the ball in Bucs territory, and resulted in 10 points for the Falcons. We lost by 5 points. Damned defense.
o Chiefs loss (30-24 in OT): Commendably again the Bucs’ offense scored 24 points, but the Bucs offense punted 5 times in 9 drives and scored 3 TDs & 1 FG on the other 4 drives. Offense had a chance to win it in the 4th qtr, but went 3-and-out, then 3-and-out again, then scored a TD to tie it. Defense held the Chiefs on their last 2 drives (2 punts) in the 4th qtr. Damned defense.
o 49ers loss (23-20): Bucs offense punted 6 times in 10 drives, but scored 2 TDs & 2 FGs on the other 4 drives. Their 20 points scored was close, but no cigar. We had a chance to put the game away on our very last Bucs drive when we made it to 1st-and-goal from the SF 8-yard line, but we settled for a FG instead of scoring a TD … and lost the game by 3 points. Damned defense.
Reality to me is that both the offense AND the defense have failed us at times during those first 10 games. But that’s all water under the bridge … ‘You are where you are’. Hopefully BOTH sides of the ball can get their act together in these last 7 games and at least get us to a 10-7 record. 11-6 would be even more better.
November 15th, 2024 at 1:44 pm
Lol. Your 100% right @DR. I’m just jaded from years of little scoring. I’m so happy to have an offense that can score at will that I’ve been more willing to overlook the defects. The Offense is just a couple players away from being very good. I’d say the defense is at least 6 or 7 guys away. Still suffering from the all in super bowl spendathon. Go Bucs. I hope e we win out. It will make some hard choices for the FO.
November 15th, 2024 at 2:17 pm
Hey Kenton Smith, I have to be at work at 6 A.M.. I don’t live in my parents house like you do. The Bucs record is 4-6 the last time I checked that’s the record of a bad team.
November 15th, 2024 at 2:35 pm
If we had a good head coach……
November 15th, 2024 at 2:53 pm
And that ladies and gentlemen is down to Coaching and game management.
November 15th, 2024 at 3:27 pm
@Defense Rules –
I’ll agree with you about the Lions game (the defense keeping us in and winning the game), but I can’t go there on any of the others. Defense gave up 30 points or more in all of those except against Niners, and the only reason that game was even close was because the Niners missed 3 field goals!
That’s not to excuse the offense, but expecting them to still be putting up 30+ points per game (which I said from the start was going to be needed to cover for our terrible defense) after losing Evans, Godwin, and J-Mac is just unreasonable IMO.
With that said – I do agree that’s it’s not only the defensive scheme, we just don’t have the same horses we used to.
We have no pass rush, and without a pass rush, your defense is usually going to suck. Sadly, it’s not for lack of trying. We’ve invested a lot of 1st and 2nd round picks at defensive tackle, end and OLB now. Not seeing much in return for it though. The question is: were those bad picks, or are they not being coached up? The truth is it’s probably a mix of both. But I’ve yet to ever see Todd Bowles develop a stud pass rusher, have you? That seems like an awful lot of bad luck considering how long he’s been a coach…
November 15th, 2024 at 3:32 pm
Xristos, I see it deeper than that. I totally agree you, but look back on who is selecting players ___The FO. It seems odd that KC year in and year out have great drafts and the Bucs who choose BEFORE KC, gets injured picks that miss multiple games. And, the misses are shocking: JTS, Hall whose claim to fame is destroying Big Red’s knee; Camarda, and Dean who’s always hurt. Millions of wasted dollars and pathetic play.
November 15th, 2024 at 3:48 pm
Beautiful head on take of our football team DR! And with all of the shortcomings it’s easy to place blame when you’re losing. Despite defensive beat downs, offensive inability to finish, coaching blunders, and injuries we have beaten the two best teams in the NFC. Taken last year’s Super Bowl teams to final play of the game. Lose our top 2 playmakers in the same game? All while playing the toughest first half schedule of 32 teams? It’s never been about how you start rather it’s all about how you finish.With the easiest second half schedule of 32 NFL teams. We Stay Together, as I have no doubt we’ll do, then we’ll see if I’ve learned anything in my long life of watching football teams. Confidence still intact it’s about time to reap what we’ve sown.
November 15th, 2024 at 4:30 pm
Dean was a 3rd round pick… and Camarda was great until his head apparently came off. So I won’t knock those.
But JTS and Hall were terrible picks and that seems pretty obvious at the time of their selections. Fell in love with their athletic measurables but seemingly forgot that neither one has the idea size and build for the positions they drafted them for.
Then again- perhaps they’re just not being coached up correctly? Has Todd Bowles ever developed a rookie into a stud pass rusher anywhere he’s been a DC or head coach? I truly can’t think of any. Maybe Leonard Williams… but his career has been spotty and inconsistent.