Jason Licht Says “Hunger” Separates 2026 Bucs
April 8th, 2026
So Bucs head coach Todd Bowles flatly rejected the notion Joe posed to him last week — that Bucs opponents last season played hungrier than Tampa Bay down the stretch.
“I don’t think teams were more hungry to play; they beat us,” Bowles said. “That doesn’t mean we weren’t hungry to play. We made physical mistakes, but effort-wise, our effort was outstanding. We didn’t play smart at times. We didn’t coach smart at times. But as far as from a ‘hungry’ standpoint, I would not use that word.”
Bowles’ comment is extra interesting considering what Buccaneers Ring of Honor general manager Jason Licht told Kevin Clark of BSPN that same afternoon. (Keep in mind Joe was on-scene in Phoenix and saw Licht sit down for the Clark video that popped today.)
Clark asked Licht to state the biggest difference between the 2026 Bucs and the 2025 Bucs.
“Hunger,” Licht replied.
“I feel like we got a lot to prove. I feel like we let a lot of fans down last year. A lot of self-reflecting and I feel like we were better than that. So, I think that sentiment is shared by everybody in the organization.”
Joe is confused. Bowles thinks the Bucs played hungry, but Licht says “hunger” will be key to what separates the 2026 Bucs from last year’s edition.
Licht added that many free agents he signed this offseason were hungry to play for the Bucs and view the team as a good club that’s a lot better than the 8-9 team that walked off the field in January.
April 8th, 2026 at 10:57 am
Our GM should be in current politics. Can you believe anything he says?
April 8th, 2026 at 10:58 am
We had 2 players that made a bunch of mental errors- Dean and McCollum. We also had 2 ILB’ers whose physical limitations (LVD- injury, SVD-speed) caused a lot of big plays losing races to the sidelines and around the corner up the field. Those limitations are why the defense had lots of troubles. Bowles benched McCollum and Dean because they kept not playing within the structure of their zone defense. Im betting they weren’t really injured. And the defense played better without them since mental errors were killing us. It wasn’t lack of hunger but brain-dead mistakes that hurt us a lot.
April 8th, 2026 at 11:02 am
That’s one of Bowles’ biggest problems. He doesn’t have the ability to step back and self evaluate this team.
Anyone that watched games last year could see that, in a lot of games the effort wasn’t there.
Now you can call that hunger or intensity or whatever you want. It doesn’t matter how you define what we saw last year. Some of our guys gave half hearted (at best) effort last year.
That shouldn’t happen on an NFL team full of guys that supposedly live and respect the head coach.
April 8th, 2026 at 11:05 am
Ring of Toilet Bowl GM Bud Licht is [Be nice. Why are you the guy Joe often has to edit or modify comments? May want to take this as a hint. — Joe].
The only thing hungry on this team is its HC.
April 8th, 2026 at 11:08 am
He says that every year. He’s a gaslighter
April 8th, 2026 at 11:09 am
Show me
April 8th, 2026 at 11:20 am
his hunger for winghouse
April 8th, 2026 at 11:25 am
Starting to feel like the word ‘hungry’ is being over-used & is very subjective. If a great, very talented player makes a great play, is it because he was ‘hungry’ or because he’s very talented? I’ll go with talented.
Fact of the matter IMO is that the 2025 team that we put on the field … in all 3 phases … lacked talent in some key areas. DEPTH was a major problem. Opponents figure out pretty quickly where your weak spots are and relentlessly attack them. Duh … we do the same thing to them.
All of us HOPE that our 2026 team is more talented than our 2025 team was. We’ve made some changes this off-season that needed to be made for quite awhile. LOTS to do between now and the start of the season, but I think most of us are at least becoming ‘cautiously optimistic’. Still have to play the games though.
April 8th, 2026 at 11:30 am
“Starting to feel like the word ‘hungry’ is being over-used & is very subjective. If a great, very talented player makes a great play, is it because he was ‘hungry’ or because he’s very talented? I’ll go with talented.”
It’s literally “who wants it more” in shorter form.
Sounds good if that’s what your looking to hear, but there’s nothing tangible in terms of playing the game to gleam from being “hungry”.
Bucs could’ve had no problem being hungry last season, they could easily be hungrier after the season, but at the end of the day it doesn’t mean anything.
Can you perform?
Can you perform at a high level?
Can you preform at a high level on a consistent basis?
Can you limit/overcome your own mistakes?
Much more concerned about these things.
April 8th, 2026 at 11:34 am
Right now we’re 0-0
As every NFL team, 2025 is behind us
2026 is where we’re at, 2027 is where we’re going
I’m looking forward to a great season of football
April 8th, 2026 at 11:36 am
Give me a break, more double talk and gaslighting. After the draft the Licht hype machine will startup again. Yeah, with the guys Licht drafted it will push the Bucs over the top. SB fo sure. lol.
April 8th, 2026 at 11:42 am
“Hungry”, “Top Flight Team”, “Tweaks”….all vague BS. No one saying anything specific because the problems are still in the building. Licht, Bowles and Baker are the trio haunting this franchise. With their decision making and talent the Bucs always find a way to lose and have gotten worse every season since 2023. There was so much leadership on this team last year they hired JPP off his couch to bring the juice. But now, with a few mid-tier FAs, a few discarded coordinators from losing teams and some rookies, this team is ready for a deep playoff run. The jokes write themselves around here.
April 8th, 2026 at 11:52 am
I remember the 2025 Bucs saying how hungry they were, how the end of 2024 left a bad taste in their mouths and they came out of the gate looking like it. Seems to me that the loss of a good handful of those veterans zapped the hunger out of the team, with so many rookies and 2nd year players pressed into service.
I have no doubt they will come out super determined in 2027. How long that hunger lasts remains to be seen.
April 8th, 2026 at 11:52 am
Look, TB is hungry. He’s hungry all the time, that’s obvious. But being all pro at the buffet table doesn’t translate to success at winning. Whatever it is, best to ignore these babbling buffoons and hope the Glazers are soft tanking for a real Head Coach.
April 8th, 2026 at 12:00 pm
Teams largely rise and fall on the play of the quarterback. When you have a young up and coming QB teams have hope for the future and everyone seems to pull together. Brady was ‘young’ with the Bucs in 2020, played well and carried us along. In 22 he played older. Quite a bit of that was the OC situation.
In 23, Baker was new, played well and the team was better. Last year, Baker got hurt, played very ordinary and even bad at times. The team could see the OC just wasn’t ready and there was no real hope. Ergo the second half swoon.
Even though we are all retired GMs and coaches, the guys on the team can see these things way before we can. What can fix that is someone, usually a young guy, getting hot and carrying the team both on the field and emotionally. We needed someone to rally around but we did not get that.
Anyway, that’s my take on playing, or not playing, “hungry”.
April 8th, 2026 at 12:08 pm
Going to lunch now, this thread made me hungry. I will celebrate the Buc’s hunger at the winghouse. Wonder if I will see Todd and Jason there? lol.
April 8th, 2026 at 12:08 pm
Pretty obvious the left hand doesnt know what the right is doing lol
will the difference this year be URGENCY or EXCUSES
GO BUCS!!!!!
April 8th, 2026 at 12:08 pm
No coach is going to admit the team wasn’t playing hard in public or probably even privately. Talk about the kiss of death.
The fact that these two disagree on the matter is what some might consider conversation and news worthy.
We know why Todd’s denying it. Why is Jason saying it in public?
Glad this was pointed out.