Two Quirks On Bucs’ 2025 Schedule
May 16th, 2025
Cakewalk ending to season.
One of the reasons why Joe enjoys reading Warren Sharp’s work is that he often takes a very detailed, if not unique look into otherwise misleading information.
Take the strength of schedules. Sharp, a handicapper turned statgeek, thinks the common way people look at strength of schedules is off base.
Most people look at opposing teams’ records from the previous season to determine how strong (or weak) a schedule is. Sharp people with so much roster turnover, that’s an inaccurate way to determine the strength of schedule.
Also, Sharp heavily favors teams that have more rest. In other words, he calculates the most days between games, amount of travel and when teams have byes as factors for their strength of schedule.
Regarding the Bucs, typing for his site, Sharp Football Analysis, Sharp has found two oddities.
The first is, the Bucs are one of just four teams to start the season on the road.
First two games on the road:
Carolina Panthers
New York Giants
San Francisco 49ers
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Additionally, Sharp believes if the Bucs can keep their heads above water until Week 12, the home stretch greatly favors the Bucs. Sharp has determined that from Week 12-18, the Bucs have the fourth-easiest schedule in the league.
What NFL teams have the easiest schedules from Week 12 to Week 18:
San Francisco 49ers
Jacksonville Jaguars
New Orleans Saints
Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Atlanta Falcons
Yeah, Joe noticed the Dixie Chicks also have a cakewalk ending to the season. So in Joe’s eyes, it is imperative the Bucs win the season opener in Billy Sherman’s summer home to open the season and even better to sweep the Dixie Chicks like they did to the Bucs last season.
Overall, Sharp has the Bucs with the No. 9 toughest strength of schedule.
May 16th, 2025 at 12:10 am
Maybe, when a critical game decision hangs in the balance of whether you let your top 5 offense try to win it, or your bottom 4 defense prevent losing it…..you don’t call the Gypsy in the booth and ask her what Mars in retrograde means to the potential of potato salad in March.
Geniuses understand.
You have your awful pass defense try to win it.
Oh, wait.
May 16th, 2025 at 12:19 am
It seems like he weights previous seasons results to an extent. The Lions and Eagles certainly aren’t the same teams they were last year and those look like some of the toughest games.
May 16th, 2025 at 12:23 am
And our division still looks like it will be weak.
May 16th, 2025 at 12:42 am
I guess I am the only one who finds the gaslighting of the schedule as nauseating as all the mock drafts.
May 16th, 2025 at 1:34 am
Delusional
I agree the schedule thing is eh. We gonna play who we gonna play. Only real benefit is knowing when the prime time games are.
May 16th, 2025 at 4:29 am
Thank you for the link to the article. Interesting for sure. Hoping for sure that week 12-18 are all winning for the Bucs.
I could be wrong, AI plays a large part of the scheduling and then the NFL execs do their own changes.
May 16th, 2025 at 6:09 am
Delusional
Agree completely. But then I’m old school..as in very OLD school!
I still believe in the axiom on any given Sunday!!! And perhaps just anecdotally and my memory is distorted, but the Bucs seem to have illustrated that ole bromide better than any team in the league.
How many times have the Bucs whipped teams they shouldn’t have only to lose to a struggling rookie QB who the Bucs make look good.
I DO NOT TAKE ANY GAMES ON THE SCHEDULE FOR GRANTED!
IMHO The Bucs can win OR lose any of them.
May 16th, 2025 at 7:30 am
Delusional…
I’m with you. Strength of schedule is garbage until very late in the season. And by then, you better have your crap together and very few players on IR.
Season to season there’s just too many changes to grade how much of an effect they will make. With teams losing players, gaining players, drafting new players, having coaching changes with all the positional coaches on up to head coach and front office, possible system changes, players developing into better players, players getting older and other intangibles like injuries and weather and just the way a team plays together with all the previous variables, very hard to gauge. Every season there’s a handful of teams that are way better than anyone expected and a handful of teams that underperform based on expectation.
All you can really do is base it on how last season’s teams did and weigh those previously stated changes as a collective positive or negative, which are really just fully opinion based. Not scientific at all and a total guessing game.
The coaches know this as well and they also know there’s a small difference between the best team and the worst team. Sometimes, without really any good reason, the best team will play like the worst team and vice versa, pretty much out of nowhere. Never look past a game, always play week to week and never take anybody lightly. Probably harder than it sounds.
May 16th, 2025 at 7:37 am
With a whole lot of that being said, LOL, I think the Bucs are a better team than they were last year and if they don’t have any major injuries to any key players, they can beat anybody on this schedule. This is when it will comes down to coaching. Will Bowles push all the right buttons and make good end-game decisions? Will Griz ended up being a really good OC and call the right plays at the right time keeping our offense top 5? Will Bowles defensive epiphany and tweaking of the defense push them into the top 10 and keep them from letting possible victories slip away?
We shall see. Very exciting stuff!