CBS: Why Bucs Fans Should Be Optimistic
May 8th, 2025
Reason(s) to be happy.
Joe is surprised more Bucs fans aren’t geeked.
* The Bucs have a loaded offense that just added a strong first-round pick at receiver.
* The Bucs have one of the most exciting running backs in Bucky Irving.
* The Bucs may have the most top-heavy receiver groups in the league.
* The Bucs have a coach who has improved the team’s record the past two years .
* The Bucs are gunning for a five-peat as NC South rulers.
Tyler Sullivan of CBS gives Bucs fans another reason to be stoked for the coming year. Well, actually two.
Sullivan went over every NFL team to find a reason for fans to smile. Sullivan couldn’t offer just one for the Bucs. He had two reasons.
Kept Chris Godwin, Lavonte David
The Buccaneers were able to keep two key core pieces intact this offseason. First, they secured long-time linebacker Lavonte David on a one-year deal as he enters his age-35 season. Then, they lured Chris Godwin back to Tampa with a three-year, $66 million extension. While these players are a bit long in the tooth, they’ve been instrumental pieces to their string of success over the last half-decade. Keeping them in-house should go a long way in Tampa Bay, continuing to push for deep playoff runs.
Provided Chris Godwin is back to 100 percent, Joe cannot argue with Sullivan. In the case of Lavonte David, Joe thinks the Bucs wooed him back more out of necessity than want. How barren would the Bucs’ inside linebackers room be without David?
If Godwin is 100 percent and David is just his ol’ dominant self, the Bucs will be in good shape.
May 8th, 2025 at 12:10 am
It’s the Defense that has fans muted in their excitement. Multiple aspects of it.
May 8th, 2025 at 12:31 am
Also worth mentioning is Hasson Reddick, and a 2nd round pass rusher entering his second year.
May 8th, 2025 at 12:55 am
Simply because getting geeked now is a bit premature. What national talking heads say at this time of year means absolutely nothing. Usually at this time of year they are picking New Orleans to win the south or they brilliantly pick the team that won last year. Still to long before the season starts!
May 8th, 2025 at 12:55 am
Defense wins championships!
Bucs defense is the weakness of the team, starting from the play caller on down…
May 8th, 2025 at 12:56 am
Not geeked, so many questions about the 29th ranked pass defense and a HC that has let the game pass him by. Think the draft was ok but still don’t have the defensive players that will make an immediate impact. Will it be yet another season with an injury prone backfield ? How many games will Dean play this season?
May 8th, 2025 at 12:57 am
We really did strengthen our d and add even more to receiving corps..only area of concern is ILB
May 8th, 2025 at 1:01 am
The Bucs also have a Top Oline
The Bucs have Vea and Kancey
The Bucs have a loaded Secondary
And the Bucs have a Pass Rush
And a Healthy SirVocea and Winfield
And a Baker
This team is ready for the Super Bowl.
Bring on whoever wants to lose 38 – 13
May 8th, 2025 at 1:13 am
I don’t like our DT depth.
Vea to Gaines is a big drop off at NT.
We need another 330 or 350 pound NT.
I hope we find a legit NT.
May 8th, 2025 at 1:13 am
Lavonte David is a Hall of Famer. One of the best ILBs to ever play the game.
Make sure it happens Ira.
May 8th, 2025 at 1:14 am
@Teacherman we got a 400 pounder UFA, didn’t ya hear?
May 8th, 2025 at 2:06 am
We know Bowles will keep it close.
May 8th, 2025 at 2:16 am
Last season was a totally bizarre year. Bucs finished 10-7 to win the NFC South, but it’s how they did it that’s bizarre.
o We started off 3-1 against 4 teams who all made the playoffs and finished the season 51-17. We handily beat the eventual Super Bowl winner. In the 3 victories we scored 30 PPG average & only allowed 17 PPG, but struggled in the Denver loss, only scoring 7 points giving up 26.
o Then we had a 6-game spell where we lost 5 out of the 6 games against teams that finished with a 54-48 season record. Bucs averaged scoring 30 PPG in that stretch, but our defense allowed an average of 31 PPG. Injuries really hurt us in that stretch, plus we had 2 very hard overtime losses.
o But we finished the season on a positive note (again), winning 6 of our last 7 games against teams with a combined 40-79 season record. Bucs averaged scoring 32 PPG in those 7 games, and our defense improved considerably in that they only allowed an average of 17 PPG in that 7-game stretch.
So for the first 4 then the last 7 games the Bucs as a team went 9-2, averaged scoring 30-32 PPG and only allowing 17 PPG average. In the middle 6 games, we were a disaster in going 1-5, still scoring 30 PPG but our defense struggled mightily allowing 31 PPG average.
We really haven’t changed the offense much, so I’d expect it to produce roughly the same results this year, maybe a tad better but not much. Our defense allowed 20 points or less in 8 of our 10 wins, and 25 PPG average in our other 2 wins. But in our 7 losses we averaged allowing slightly over 30 PPG.
More than anything else I believe we needed to improve our depth on defense to be able to deal better with injuries, as well as to clean up the MLB, Edge & Safety starting positions. We probably did that at CB and at DT/Edge. But I’m not convinced yet that we improved our ILB depth or our DT/NT depth. Depending on how injuries play out this season, that might come back to bite us in the arse.
May 8th, 2025 at 4:44 am
The coaching staff needs to study the Denver game last year and the Saints games when Payton was the HC. He clearly knows where the soft spots and tendencies are in the Buc’s defense and seems to do a pretty good job of throttling the offense as well (though not nearly to the degree he dissects the defense). If they do nothing more than fix the scheme/tendency holes Payton has been exploiting for years, they’ll easily win a couple more games.
May 8th, 2025 at 4:45 am
We can only be considered elite if and when we solve the home field win, loss riddle. We stink at home. And consistently we fall short on our swagger and energy level. You can’t lose at home and expect to be considered one of the all around best. If our attitude at home is pure get up and go, I’ll step on your head at RayJay kind of message and delivery, then and only then can we be complete. We don’t need a stadium to have 35 to 45% opposing fans making more noise than Buc fans, that can’t happen either, period.
May 8th, 2025 at 5:14 am
To be geeked is a tad premature at this point. A lot has been said about “the team with the most points at the end of the game wins the game.” This is 100% true HOWEVER in order to do that your defense needs to help the offense accomplish this and our defense is not very good. Does anyone buy into Bowles saying he spent a lot of time looking at the failures on defense and can fix them?
I admit we don’t know what we have with Trask so if Baker goes down our offense that we count on to outscore everyone will suffer. Will it be enough to outscore everyone? I have my doubts.
Another thing that we don’t know yet is how well our offense is going to perform and respond with the new OC. Will it be a smooth transition? Too early to tell.
May 8th, 2025 at 5:36 am
Fans these days must be spoiled. Forgotten about the Den of Depression, and the lost decade. McCown as their qb and a blocking icon as their top receiver. Smh
May 8th, 2025 at 5:46 am
Feeling optimistic! Thinking they are on top of Godwin’s injury and he will be good to go.
Hoping for our entire team to remain healthy. We also had many bad calls against us last season that didn’t help either. Go Bucs!
May 8th, 2025 at 5:50 am
I’m not peeked and still concerned about our D. We got better at D, but was it enough? Secondary I believe yes. DLine maybe and ILB I doubt it. Time.will tell.
May 8th, 2025 at 6:00 am
Well said D F, the middle of the field was wide open …. bend but don’t break doesn’t work if you don’t have a pass rush and can’t stop on 3rd downs…. I couldn’t agree more. It’s a long season 17 games plus preseason …
May 8th, 2025 at 6:01 am
Well, things have been a lot better these past 5 years. That defense still worries me. I would love to see “the blob” work out to be a VV replacement, but I doubt it works out. Hey, Joe, when camp starts get us a picture of him and Tez. Would Tez orbit him?
I forget his name, but he is interesting.
May 8th, 2025 at 6:06 am
HetJude, yeah, the refs were brutal. Especially in the Chiefs game. Especially at the end. That was just ridiculous. The FBI should look into the refs and see if they’re on the take.
May 8th, 2025 at 6:08 am
And it wasn’t just the bad calls against us. They missed obvious calls against the chiefs too. Especially an obvious offsides at the end.
May 8th, 2025 at 6:29 am
Blows my mind on how many fans are so negative. You guys forget when the Bucs were perennial losers. I remember sitting in the stands at the old sombrero and the guy next to me had a bag over his head.
You guys should enjoy what we have going on. We have won the superbowl Twice. Enjoy our team and stop complaining about every move the Bucs make or didn’t make.
May 8th, 2025 at 6:46 am
I have to assume Sir Dennis is coming back 100% healthy which immediately improves our middle of the field coverage which was woefully lacking last year.
We know and HE knows he must stay healthy this season or he will forever be labeled as injury prone and a 2nd contract might not be in his future.
I think he’ll have a very strong season which in turn elevates this defense big time. Can’t wait to see him in camp.
May 8th, 2025 at 7:09 am
BucU, you are absolutely correct. If Dennis has a very strong season it should elevate the defense big time. The Dolphins MLB, (LaVontes friend) should help. So should Reddick. 4 quality draft picks should make a difference. We’re gonna have an old fashioned knockout competition for spots. Maybe we stay healthy? We’re gonna be better but are we gonna be good enough? DR is right about some things. And another beast or 2 at Nose Guard/Defensive Tackle and a new Middle Linebacker are our remaining needs. And yes, that could come back to bite us in the ass. But we are better.
May 8th, 2025 at 7:17 am
Constructive criticism is essential in order to avoid another slide into ineptitude and irrelevance. Owners need to know we won’t tolerate another 11 year rebuild.
Being satisfied with mediocrity invites such a regression. Bucs fans, especially, have grown accustomed to expecting excellence from the defense. What we have had the last two years is the opposite.
It must be fixed.
May 8th, 2025 at 7:54 am
OOOH Look what I found! Rod’s prediction from May of ’24:
“Rod Munch Says:
May 15th, 2024 at 9:08 pm
I do this every year on schedule release day – not my final prediction, but it’s fun to have it on the record to look back at later… I’ve generally done extremely well at these, with the exception of last year, but I still had them 4-7, just not getting the W’s down the stretch.
Again, just my first take…
Sept. 8 WASHINGTON W 1-0
Sept. 15 at Detroit L 1-1
Sept. 22 DENVER W 2-1
Sept. 29 PHILADELPHIA L 2-2
Oct. 3 at Atlanta L 2-3
Oct. 13 at New Orleans L 2-4
Oct. 21 BALTIMORE L 2-5
Oct. 27 ATLANTA W 3-5
Nov. 4 at Kansas City L 3-6
Nov. 10 SAN FRANCISCO L 3-7
— bye week —
Nov. 24 at N.Y. Giants W 4-7
Dec. 1 at Carolina L 4-8
Dec. 8 LAS VEGAS W 5-8
Dec. 15 at L.A. Chargers L 5-9
Dec. 22 at Dallas L 5-10
Dec. 29 CAROLINA W 6-10
Jan. 4/5 NEW ORLEANS L 6-11”
May 8th, 2025 at 8:17 am
Rod, only off by 4. Always leans negative.
Not a bad prediction if this were the NHL or MLB.
He’ll probably having us win eight this season.
We had a bunch of injuries and could have played much better and still won 10 games. I think we get 12 or 13 wins last season if we don’t have seasoning injuries to Godwin and Dennis and if Winfield is fully healthy all season.
We would have swept Atlanta, we would have won the close game against KC and probably would have beaten San Francisco… and then there’s that Dallas game.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda. 😞
May 8th, 2025 at 8:18 am
Waterlung. The owners don’t care what you like. It’s what they like. They couldn’t care less about you or name changing PB#1.
May 8th, 2025 at 8:20 am
TB#1
May 8th, 2025 at 8:21 am
Happy but causiouly geeked.
May 8th, 2025 at 8:29 am
We continue to try to excel at all phases, well, not really on special teams, yet we are stuck with mediocrity at best at head coach. It’s astonishing to me that we accept this again this year. I just finished watching some game replays from last year and the poor decisions, unwillingness to change and his overall performance was horrible. No one can tell me that JL doesn’t see this so my question is how can we dedicate so much time, money and effort in improving the personnel and totally ignore the below average head coaching situation? His record is evidence that he’s nothing more than below average so why devote so much to player improvement and totally ignore improving the head coach position.