Bucs’ Identity, Good And Bad
December 6th, 2025
Bucs coach Todd Bowles.
Joe always hears football people talk about how football begins after Thanksgiving. That’s when the wheat is separated from the chaff, the contenders from the pretenders.
Most coaches build their teams to hit overdrive when December comes around. That’s when playoff seeding and division winners are decided.
On the good side of this for the Bucs is whenever the Bucs lead at halftime, the Bucs are undefeated this season, 7-0. Flip the coin and tomorrow’s opponent, the slimy Saints, have only scored first in one game.
So if the Bucs have their ducks in a row, this shouldn’t be a difficult game for the Bucs if you believe in trends. But now here is the bad: Joe typed this week about being dubious that the Bucs can fix their defense in December.
By now, in December, your team’s identity is pretty established, for better or for worse. In December, if everyone is healthy, there’s no cavalry coming way past the trade deadline. Anyone worth a s(p)it is employed.
As Dirk Koetter once said of December football, “Our guys are our guys.”
Yes, Joe knows Calijah Kancey may or may not return to the team before the end of the season. Will he magically make the pass defense any better by himself?
Joe spoke about the following with the Sage of Tampa Bay sports, Ira Kaufman, on his podcast this week. Could Ira remember any team, barring stud players returning from an injury, that was able to fix a defense (or an offense) in December?
Former Bucs great Rondé Barber also has reservations.
Joe couldn’t think of a team. Neither could Ira.
So unless Joe sees the Bucs’ defense hold the slimy Saints to one score from the New Orleans offense, Joe believes the sieve of a Bucs pass is part of who the team is this year.
December 6th, 2025 at 12:05 pm
Using Joes own numbers.. it ain’t just this year. It’s the last seven years.
Don’t get it twisted. When your run defense is as dominant as the Bucs’ used to be under Bowles, teams will throw more on you and your passing yardage rankings won’t be as good. Nowadays, however, the run defense is not special. –Joe
December 6th, 2025 at 12:18 pm
I hope we DO NOT see defensive linemen in coverage.
That ship has sailed.
December 6th, 2025 at 12:46 pm
Your identity is routinely letting teams run wide aas open across all levels of your defense. Soft AF
December 6th, 2025 at 12:51 pm
Even Air Coryell and Dan Fouts couldn’t win without a defense
December 6th, 2025 at 12:56 pm
Or Don Coryell and Jim Hart.
Coryell’s playoff record is frightening.
December 6th, 2025 at 1:04 pm
The run defense had a good year in 2022 ranking 9th. Except for that it has ranked
21st twice, 29th twice, and 30th once since 2019. That’s below average to poor 5 years.
Didn’t look up the pass defense since I didn’t want to blow my lunch.
Maybe a hc who’s a defensive guru would have a better defense with a better
defensive coach.
Could be the “great run defense ” is a false opinion.
December 6th, 2025 at 1:22 pm
Joe wrote about this earlier this week. Just once since 2019 have the Bucs had a pass defense better than 21st in the league.
December 6th, 2025 at 1:23 pm
I don’t have it twisted Joe why would you bother to run on a team when your past defense is putrid?
Kind of the converse of what you’re saying. Our run defense was so good because we were so bad at the pass and still are.
December 6th, 2025 at 1:39 pm
This defense seems to go as Dean goes. The games he is out injured they stink. The games he plays they are decent. I think Bowles tries to overcorrect for his absence and the whole defense suffers by them playing more zone and less blitzing.
December 6th, 2025 at 1:40 pm
And who is in charge of all this trash. Time for Bowles to go. Not just make him hire a DC.
December 6th, 2025 at 1:48 pm
Google AI comes up with the same number ranking for run and pass defense. Don’t have the patience to look up every year by year to see what the numbers are. The eye test tells us the defense isn’t average so that’s on the defensive guru. Period.
December 6th, 2025 at 1:58 pm
The D has the talent on it but it looks the way it looks because of the scheme/system that’s being run. Sure the players aren’t perfect but if the scheme/system changed watch how much would probably change on that D. Yaya would probably have a couple of more sacks if they just stopped dropping into coverage. He’d probably be up to 10 or so then.
December 6th, 2025 at 2:12 pm
Sound familiar?
Todd Bowles’ tenure (2015-2018) with the Jets started strong with a top-10 defense in Year 1 (yards/points), known for aggressive blitzing (ranked 2nd in NFL blitz rate) that generated high pressure but sometimes gave up big plays; however, after that initial success, defensive performance declined, struggling with consistency, injuries, and overall rankings in his final three seasons, leading to his firing despite being seen as a defensive guru
December 6th, 2025 at 2:41 pm
Search top 10 against the pass.
Buffalo, Chargers, Cleveland, Houston, Vikings, Green Bay, New Orleans, Atlanta, Denver, Jets 😳
I don’t see many Super bowl favorites. Same as last year and year before but by all means keep on acting like yards allowed is the fatal flaw for the team.
December 6th, 2025 at 3:05 pm
Why doesnt this scammer of a head coach resigns?
December 6th, 2025 at 3:26 pm
You’d quit a job where you make millions annually because someone outside your work environment doesn’t like you?
December 6th, 2025 at 3:49 pm
Honestly, our offense has been as bad as our defense along with an uninspired special teams. Except our punter and place kicker are good. Anyway, knowing Todd Bowles, one thing that will get fixed is our run defense. A few teams have run the ball on us this year and Bowles will get that fixed. Then if our offense can get going we’ll have a chance at doing something. But it’s not gonna be easy. Ain’t nothing worthwhile easy.
December 6th, 2025 at 4:32 pm
Licht bears just as much responsibility. He picks the groceries and the fanboys and media hype all the mediocre talent every season then cry that Bowles can’t make Logan Hall, JTS and Chris Braswell into something they are not.
If you are calling for Bowles to be fired then you should also be calling for Licht to go too. Failure is also a team effort
December 6th, 2025 at 4:35 pm
Maybe this year’s Bucs defense really hasn’t developed an identity yet. Starting to think we’ve all been overly harsh on them. This defense has FIVE new starters (in new positions for them): Tykee Smith (moved to Safety), SVD (starter at MLB), Jacob Parrish (starter at Nickel & sometimes outside CB), Haason Reddick (starter at OLB) and Elijah Roberts (starter at DT).
Throw in that (in my estimation at least) we’ve got 4 highly paid defenders underperforming thus far: Winfield (getting better though), McCollum (struggling too much), LVD (love him but showing his age), and Vea (getting lots of def snaps but not dominating).
Despite all that however, our defense has only allowed 20.0 PPG average in our 7 wins; quite acceptable IMO. On the other side of the coin, our defense has allowed 32.2 PPG average in our 5 losses; totally unacceptable IMO.
To a certain extend we have established an identity though. our Pass Defense is woefully bad (#29 in the NFL), yet our Run Defense is reasonably good (#6 in the NFL). Despite those numbers, the explosive plays we’ve given up this season (running AND passing) is off the charts. So is our failure to stop quality opponents from scoring TDs once the reach the Red Zone. Not sure THAT’S the identity we want.
December 6th, 2025 at 4:53 pm
The final score on the scoreboard is the only stat that matters. They didn’t put up averages to determine who wins the game.
December 6th, 2025 at 5:02 pm
We got the Sideline Stiff.
December 6th, 2025 at 5:06 pm
Mediocre coach serves mediocre results.
Weird.
December 6th, 2025 at 9:30 pm
Couple of years ago speaking of the Bucs I wrote that the “the defense is a sieve”. Sadly, I’m sill not wrong. The only time Bowles has ever fielded a winning defense with our Bucs is when he has had overwhelming talent on that side of the ball. Otherwise, it’s been pretty much sieve city all the time.
The Glazers are on the clock.
December 6th, 2025 at 9:52 pm
Brisket..I am.
December 6th, 2025 at 9:56 pm
LETS GET THIS STRAIGHT , BOWLES AND LIGHT BUILT THIS DEFENCE .THERE PLAYERS , THERE DRAFT PICS OVER THE YEARS ,THEY OWN IT. THIS IS ON THEM . So secondary is still bad like it has been for years . No edge rushers ,tackling leaves a lot to be desired. We let Tony dungee go for less AND HE HAD BUILT A GREAT DEFENCE . WHY ARE WE HANGING ON WHEN OTHER TEAMS ARE MOVING FORWARD?
December 6th, 2025 at 10:30 pm
The problem is obvious.
December 6th, 2025 at 10:42 pm
I guess there’s a chance the Bucs defense can stop the 5 year long trend of being ass against the pass all of a sudden with no coaching changes. It’s possible. Which reminds me I need to buy a lottery ticket.
December 6th, 2025 at 11:48 pm
I think I remember that Packers super bowl team a while back that had a terrible defense and then suddenly got really hot end of season. And our 2020 defense played much better in the post season than they did the regular season. It’s not common but it’s possible. But we’re just missing play makers up front.
December 7th, 2025 at 7:27 am
You rarely find great edge rushers outside of the top ten. I wish we’d trade up next year