NFL.com: Bucs Worth Climbing On Bandwagon
May 9th, 2025
All aboard!
Plenty of seats available. Soon to fill up. You snooze, you lose.
It seems the nation is beginning to take notice of the Bucs. The Bucs had a No. 3-ranked offense last year stocked with stars. They have a two-time Pro Bowl quarterback. They’re looking for a five-peat as NFC South champs.
Then last month, they added Ohio State receiver Emeka Egbuka in the first round of the draft.
Boom! All of a sudden… are the Bucs beginning to become (ssshhh!) popular?
Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht has been all over the place. Whether it has been SiriusXM Radio to Pat McAfee’s show to Rich Eisen, he seems to be everywhere.
Then there is Bucky Irving. Just last weekend, Irving was a guest coach at Oregon’s spring game and he called plays for one of the teams. Oregon football’s Twitter account has Bucky mic’ed up for the event.
Then yesterday, Bucky was on with Kay Adams (lucky guy). As the Sage of Tampa Bay sports, Ira Kaufman would say, “What’s going on here?”
It seems there is a bandwagon for the Bucs. And NFL.com’s Gennaro Felice says this bandwagon, led by Mayfield, will soon fill up.
Fresh off a career year that saw him tie for second in touchdown passes (41) while finishing third in passing yards (4,500) and completion percentage (71.4), … Mayfield’s protected by one of the best offensive lines in the league. And he’s supported by a deep group of pass catchers and ball carriers, with the Buccaneers’ first-round pick, Emeka Egbuka, only adding to those riches.
Egbuka was my WR1 in this draft class, even though I view him as a WR2 in the NFL. He just offers such a reliable, well-rounded game. Joining a receiving corps that already includes Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Jalen McMillan — who closed his rookie campaign with seven touchdowns in the final five weeks of the regular season — Egbuka was a luxury pick for GM Jason Licht. But Baker ain’t complaining!
Offense sells tickets and offense gets teams on TV. Provided Mike Evans hasn’t been dragged by Father Time and Chris Godwin is healthy, this offense has the chance to be absolutely explosive.
And that will get the Bucs prime time games, get the fantasy football crowd heavy panting and have people clamoring to get on the bandwagon like folks climbing the walls of the U.S. Embassy when the final American helicopter flew away from Saigon.
Get your seats while you can on that wagon. This should be fun!
May 9th, 2025 at 4:08 am
Hard not to be a believer.
The team keeps dominating the NFC South, and it certainly looks like they’ve improved.
Still would like to see a Vet Pass rusher and Cb added to the mix, but it’s a great time to put money on The Bucs
May 9th, 2025 at 4:53 am
Oh Joe, that’s an absolutely AWESOME photo of a ‘band wagon’. Never seen that before. Absolutely awesome!
I will tell ya though, the one thing that’s starting to scare me is UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS. I kinda prefer to applaud for actual performance as opposed to anticipated performance. We’ve got several potential starters, especially on defense (Winfield, Dean, Reddick among others), coming off marginal seasons IMO. And several still recovering from previous injuries/surgeries (Morrison, Godwin, SVD, Bryce Hall). And should the injury bug bite a couple of key players this year (you know who they are), we’d be hurting just like last season. Maybe more-so.
Much prefer to be the underdog that no one wants to play.
May 9th, 2025 at 5:08 am
It may not be there anymore but the Rinling Bros Estate used to have a museum of lots of old circus wagons and assorted other cool stuff. I was dumbstruck as a kid. By all of it. The art is world class BTW and should be seen by more. The whole place needs to be preserved!
Go Bucs!
May 9th, 2025 at 6:10 am
Holy smokes!! An actual Band Wagon!! Well done!
May 9th, 2025 at 6:19 am
Offensive plays will get the Bucs on the highlight reels for sure. To get reel (!) recognition, the Bucs need to win outside the division against quality teams, especially night games. Bowles needs to figure out the night games!
May 9th, 2025 at 6:35 am
The DREAM DECADE continues….
LFG!!!!!
May 9th, 2025 at 6:38 am
Great to have a team that is a legit SB contender for the foreseeable future.
May 9th, 2025 at 6:47 am
Offensive line was an obvious source of improvement last season. The running game made an incredible one year improvement. Mayfield had a great year but pass protection at times was spotty forcing Mayfield out of the pocket to scramble for first downs. Hoping with a full year’s experience Barton will be better calling out protection schemes.
May 9th, 2025 at 7:30 am
I agree with DR, I prefer the Bucs to be picked last and fly under the radar. We typically don’t handle the praise well.
May 9th, 2025 at 7:32 am
Someone finally mentioned Jalen McMillan when talking about the receivers.That tells me he’s actually done a scintilla of research, unlike all the other talking heads who have been quoted on Joe Bucs.
May 9th, 2025 at 7:54 am
Defense Rules, where this team is headed our preference to be the underdog won’t matter. We will be the favorites most of the time. I’ve watched alot of good OU teams over the years. The really good ones had to be ready for the opponents best game every week. Win in those games and you really are good. We’re good enough where we don’t need smoke and mirrors to win. Hopefully we can flip the switch from playing well as the underdogs to playing even better as the favorites. That’s when we know that we really are good.
May 9th, 2025 at 8:23 am
Never seen so many fans get excited about a team drafting a wr4 . Baker Mayfield completed 407 passes 2nd only to Joe Burrows(who didn’t make the playoffs). Passing offense wasn’t an issue but we made it our #1 priority? There is only so many completions in a game where is the new guys coming from. And he isn’t here to fill in for Mike Evens because our new toy is a slot receiver. This euphoria will be short lived if something isn’t done to correct the middle of our defense. Doent matter how many great receivers you have if the defense can’t get off the damn field!!!
May 9th, 2025 at 8:31 am
Kenton…. For me comparing college programs to pro football just does not matter.
When Oklahoma was elite for many of my childhood years — their 2nd string was better than 3 out of 4 or even 4 out 5 teams they were playing.
In college, there are in my estimations 10 to 20 Oklahoma type programs. Programs that over a 10 year period of time only lose 3 games or less pretty much every season.
In the pro’s reaching that elite team year in and year out for 7 to 10 years. That may be 1 or 2 teams at a time. It is just a higher bar.
We have seen the Eagles rise to the top and then 3 years later only win 4 games out of 16.
Winning a division 4 years in a row is pretty rare in the NFL. Let’s get better than that… but winning in the NFL is much more fragile than winning in college in my humble opinion.
May 9th, 2025 at 8:35 am
I’d rather the team see themselves as winners this year. Being underdogs like the last two years should stop. Third year with Baker and a crazy amount of talent, the team should come out with a winning attitude every game. Bowles has been right about the lack of consistency. Coming out hot one game and flat the next is not a winner’s attitude.
May 9th, 2025 at 8:47 am
geno711, point taken.
May 9th, 2025 at 8:55 am
I’m thinking Steelers with Bradshaw, 49ers with Montana, Cowboys with Aikman, Patriots with Brady, Chiefs with MaHommes. 5 to 10 years of excellence. Our defense will have to take a step up. Of course we have to win that next Super Bowl. But if we are as good as I think we are then that’s where I think we’re headed. This year is the key though.
May 9th, 2025 at 8:58 am
This makes me very very nervous. I prefer being the overlooked underdog. Playing with a chip on our shoulder is our forte! I hope the guys don’t start reading the papers!
May 9th, 2025 at 9:09 am
Always been on the bandwagon. I’m probably a bit of a homer but better than being a bandwagon fan of some other city. I give my friends a lot of grief who have lived down here for 20 plus years and still root for their crap northern teams. If you’re a snowbird, you get a pass. If you root for some team in a city you’ve never been to and either were born and raised in Tampa Bay or have lived here a long time, you should be a Bucs fan, period! I have zero respect for any of your sports opinions. I don’t really care who your dad or grandpa rooted for and where theyre from.
I was just a kid when they started this he franchise and they were so terrible through the late ’70s and a lot of the ’80s that I wouldn’t have cared much. I started watching them fairly regularly as a high schooler in the late ’80s with Testaverde… though he made it hard to stay on that bandwagon. LOL
Not long after, the Glazers bought the team and though it’s been an up and down ride, way better than when Culverhouse owned it.
I like what I see on paper with the Bucs and the team just seems like one big happy, focused family. I’ll enjoy the off-season while ramping up to the real season, just going to be hoping and praying major injuries don’t happen. I think we could have been that much better without all the key injuries this past season and we are even more stacked this season. Go Bucs!!
May 9th, 2025 at 9:38 am
The 49ers were decimated by injuries too and they missed the playoffs.
Any other division and we don’t make it either.
Just because we dud make the playoffs, it doesn’t discount the fact we were injured almost every game.
Injury luck waxes and wanes too and this should be a good year injury wise.
May 9th, 2025 at 9:55 am
I love Bradshaw but he is so overrated. He has 4 rings due to having incredible receivers, an incredible defense and no video replay.
May 9th, 2025 at 9:56 am
Excited about the offense, but concerned that the defense will let this team down. Not sure enough has been done to fix the defensive problems this season.
May 9th, 2025 at 10:12 am
We beat Detroit and Washington in Philadelphia last year. So really stop with the bad NFC South.
May 9th, 2025 at 10:21 am
Truth be Told Says:
“Great to have a team that is a legit SB contender for the foreseeable future.”
I’m not sure what team you’re talking about sir.
Because there’s no way it could be the Bowles lead Bucs. The NFC South title is not the Superbowl.
If you’re the prettiest girl at the 4H beauty pageant that doesn’t make you Miss America.
May 9th, 2025 at 10:33 am
4H has cow’s, right?
May 9th, 2025 at 10:56 am
lol so funny. the “five peat nfc south champs” bandwagon woo woo!!!
May 9th, 2025 at 11:06 am
Egbuka is a good pick, and he may be a 10 year big producer for the team. But everyone keeps focusing on our first pick.
Honestly, I’m more excited about the other picks.
Look, I get the knocks on Todd Bowles. The whole Jets thing happened. He’s not a big name coach. I don’t even think he’s a completely honest coach.
And certainly, the Bucs have benefited from being in a weak division up until now. And so has Bowles.
That said, I tend to think about the tougher games…how can the Bucs win them?
We have a top offense. It reminds me of the year the Broncos lost the superbowl because they had a bad defense but a top offense. They addressed the defense the following off season, then came back the next year to win.
That’s the position I see for the Bucs. The defense just needed a few more pieces.
THAT’S why I’m excited. It feels like those pieces have possibly been added.
And that is why I disagree with ToddBowles#1.
I see the team through a wide angle lens, not a narrow one. I see that even though Todd Bowls has not been blockbuster levvel, he has been steadily improving things since becoming head coach.
And I also understand the reasons the defense has not exactly flourished. Offense. The reason the offense has done well is because the past couple drafts have been dedicated to building around Baker Mayfield.
Rightfully so.
But that meant neglecting the defense until this year. Now we have circled back to defense.
I do admire that Bowles, a defensive guy, was willing to go against the grain and focus ln the other side of the ball first. He knows yu need a QB to truly succeed, and yu need to build around him.
So this draft, all of it, makes me excited. It will take some games to get legs under it, but then we can and will compete for a Superbowl.
With Todd Bowles as head coach.
May 9th, 2025 at 11:45 am
Buccaneer Bonzai Says:
“And certainly, the Bucs have benefited from being in a weak division up until now. And so has Bowles.”
This is my entire point to every rant I post. And I get bashed for presenting facts.
If we were in ANY other division we would not be having these conversations about division titles and Superbowl “contention”.
How do you get to the Superbowl when you can’t get past round 1?
We regressed last season in terms of postseason play.
Getting ten wins means absolute zero when you flop like a fish at home in prime time, versus a rookie QB in his first playoff game, while forcing zero punts and keeping your high powered offense off the field.
And when the offense had a chance at the end to take the lead by going for a TD, the flacid HC is content to kick a FG and then leave it up to the defense with a few minutes in the tied game.
Queue the price is right fail horn.
May 9th, 2025 at 11:53 am
SSSSHHHHHH! Keep them under the radar and underestimated!