Did Zac Robinson Have A Red-Flag Preseason?
August 29th, 2026
Last night was brutal for the Tampa Bay offense and the week prior was sad for the first-team offense.
And while Joe has little use for preseason games, Joe has to take a moment to wonder if new Bucs offensive coordinator Zac Robinson got roughed up more than he should have.
The Bucs were held to 87 yards of offense last night. The Bucs’ first three drives against the Chiefs last week netted only 12 yards on 11 plays. Yeah, it’s preseason, but Robinson is still coaching and trying to move the ball, and doing his best to get players to respond.
A year ago, Joe wrote about summer red flags when it came to former Bucs playcaller Josh Grizzard’s rushing attack.
Joe realizes Robinson largely was working with a miserable backup offensive line, but wasn’t that backup line an issue last season? Joe’s not blaming Robinson, but he certainly bears some responsibility along with his O-line coach, Kevin Carberry.
Also, Joe did not like how it seemed the Robinson allowed fourth-string right tackle Paul Rubelt to trash first-team offense work against Jacksonville in practice, and in the preseason game against the Chiefs. It sure felt like Robinson could have coached around that by not putting Rubelt on an island.
Hopefully, the past week has been a mirage and Robinson will emerge Cincinnati-ready.
August 29th, 2026 at 6:14 am
Magically in 2 weeks we will be good. Yeah right
August 29th, 2026 at 6:17 am
Yes
August 29th, 2026 at 6:18 am
i hope he is hiding the real playbook. whatever that was last night was, well, lets be kind, not great.
August 29th, 2026 at 6:31 am
If he didn’t want to show anything in preseason, mission accomplished. The plays, and play calling were horrible. What was worse, the players were just getting whipped. None on offense looked like they belonged on an NFL field. Count me in the worried camp
August 29th, 2026 at 6:51 am
Man. Eighty-seven yards of offense?
My Roomba covered more ground last night.
August 29th, 2026 at 7:14 am
don’t worry Buck fan in two weeks will hit the switch will be playoff ready LOL
August 29th, 2026 at 7:16 am
one of the worst games ive ever seen makes me scared for this offense, he was bad in atlanta, it’s not a good sign, man it was nice when we had BA no riskit no biscuit, wish we had a offense that was not scared to throw it downfield
August 29th, 2026 at 7:16 am
YEEEP!! 4 win season coming up! JUST REALLY BAD COACHES!
August 29th, 2026 at 7:20 am
It’s called preseason, relax. If they sh!t the bed vs the Bengals then you sissies can hit the doom and gloom button.
August 29th, 2026 at 7:39 am
2-15 coming up. Bowles + Robinson = A bouillabaisse of failure and excuses.
🤡🤡🤡🤡
August 29th, 2026 at 7:43 am
No, they don’t even gameplan for these games, but there were some things to like and some things I personally didn’t like. A lot of that is based on how it looks when the players are trying to do it, which made everything last night look bad.
Daniels maybe stalling in the pocket, or WRs with stone hands and the passes where the QB is stepping back off his platform but muscling the ball forward to a player at or just behind the LOS. All it takes is a smart/fast enough player to blow those plays up.
August 29th, 2026 at 7:48 am
Liam and his coaching staff were displaying great chemistry last night smoking and joking on the sidelines
Because they BELIEVE in themselves
DUVALLLLL…. Prevailed in every scrimmage and then the game last night.
August 29th, 2026 at 7:49 am
Buck fan?
August 29th, 2026 at 7:49 am
We have zero idea what Zacs philosophy is with preseason games.
August 29th, 2026 at 7:58 am
What WBL and ScotD said.
No way of knowing the plan for these games without being inside their head.
It was preseason vanilla football with vanilla sprinkles
And no, that doesn’t mean I have super confidence they are lighting up the scoreboard Week 1. Just saying I don’t think it means they will suck either. Really no way of knowing, so my vote is Yellow Flag. Proceed with Caution on the optimism meter.
August 29th, 2026 at 8:05 am
JOE ; why waste a whole article on this?? None of it matters, it’s all worthless, the competition, the upcoming cuts, the schemes and play calls, and lastly the performance and outcome! All meaningless. BUCS should of forfeited all three games and stayed home with their locked and loaded roster and game plan since June.
August 29th, 2026 at 8:12 am
“And while Joe has little use for preseason games…”
Ah ah ah – “little use” is more than “worthless.” Joe’s a flip-flopper! Lol.
Different topic, but it’s already obvious that this year’s special teams are *infinitely* better than that sh!$ show we saw last year.
August 29th, 2026 at 8:24 am
Get a grip. We aren’t trying to win these games, we’re only trying to see what various people can (and CAN’T–looking at you Klein) do.
August 29th, 2026 at 8:30 am
Someone please bookmark this page so we can go back after the seasons and see the moronic chicken little fans crying about a bad season because our backups to the backups had poor performances. You guys are idiots.
August 29th, 2026 at 8:37 am
@Joe, since you’ve been at all the practices and have seen the scrimmages and all. How would you compare the play calling/types of plays in practice/scrimmages vs what has been shown cases in the games thus far? I know you can only share limited information about the scheme and what not but would you say it’s relatively the same or not?
August 29th, 2026 at 8:43 am
Exactly, THIS is the Bucs wild card on offense. I was not impressed with Robinson’s work in ATL. He had major weapons there, but in fairness, he lacked a QB.
Overall, he has better weapons with the Bucs, as long as they are healthy. Great O-line, deeper WR room, a good stable of RBs, acceptable TEs, and a far and away better QB.
I pray Zac is a HC next year. That will mean the Bucs kicked butt.
August 29th, 2026 at 8:43 am
There is no point to saying preseason games are worthless and then say you are concerned about how the offense played in said worrhless preseason games
August 29th, 2026 at 8:50 am
“Daniels maybe stalling in the pocket, or WRs with stone hands and the passes where the QB is stepping back off his platform but muscling the ball forward to a player at or just behind the LOS.”
– – – – – – – – – – – – – –
WBL makes a very good point. And I will add, if J-Daniels is struggling learning the plays and how to play under center, add to that the WRs are struggling with the playbook and route running. Add to that the backups to the backups for the O-line are not so good. This describes chaos, and that what was on display.
But not to take away my previous point, I worry about Z Rob. We shall see
August 29th, 2026 at 8:52 am
What preseason showed me was that we lack depth in a couple areas and need to hope that we can pick up some better depth players after cuts. Oline depth looked awful. I still think we are weak at TE. Safety and corner on defense need a little help. I understand back ups are back ups, but some of these guys proved they are no where near NFL quality.
August 29th, 2026 at 8:55 am
It’s hard to run a vanilla preseason offense when the OL is getting manhandled. The first team OL was reported to struggle during the joint practices too. OL coach Kevin Carberry better figure this out.
August 29th, 2026 at 8:57 am
Cohen is best buddies with Grizzard and this guy. They may be purposely sabotaging the team out of spite.
August 29th, 2026 at 9:15 am
Robinson is going to be stealing paychecks. I may be wrong on this but my gut feeling says ATL was elated to get rid of him.
August 29th, 2026 at 9:21 am
Joe, unfortunately you’re probably seeing the real Zac; you’ve separately made the point that he didn’t exactly light it up in Atlanta. And as good as the Bucs running back room may look, none of them is Bijan Robinson.
Each year this time, I decide on travel to Tampa and subscribing to NFL Sunday ticket. Unfortunately, my personal view is now that this season will not meet high expectations—and likely end with us debating where the 2027 draft pick will land.
Sorry to be pessimistic.
August 29th, 2026 at 9:29 am
This season clearly can go several different ways. You can rationalize it anyway you want. Will the WR room get healthy? Will Wirfs be Wirfs? Will the backup OL be needed ? If so, will they be serviceable? Will the OC be able to adapt his play calling to his available players? Hang on to your seat… This season may be like those old wooden rollercoaster rides!!! Won’t be long now…all will be revealed!!
August 29th, 2026 at 9:30 am
This is a 6 win team…
August 29th, 2026 at 9:33 am
Did not like the Zac Robinson hire. The preseason just validated it. He had Bijan, London and Pitts and they were shutout by the Panthers.
August 29th, 2026 at 9:42 am
Not sure why so many people that that Zac Robinson was a great hire. He was the Falcons OC last season that had some really good offensive players. Results were not there.
August 29th, 2026 at 9:46 am
Not at all. He had scrubs,such as Daniels to work with. Last year he knocked us out of the playoffs wit a real QB Cousins.
August 29th, 2026 at 9:46 am
Baker’s stats with Coen as OC. We let him leave because our owners preferred Bowles as Head Coach.
Passing Yards: 4,500 yards
Passing Touchdowns: 41 TDs
Interceptions: 16
Completion Percentage: 71.4% (franchise single-season record)
Passer Rating: 106.8 (a career high and franchise record)
August 29th, 2026 at 10:01 am
So when the Bucs are in the playoffs, are all you 2 and 4 win guys going to man up and say you were wrong, or will you climb back under your rock in your mom’s basement?
August 29th, 2026 at 10:10 am
I would tap the breaks on this O Line being great. You chain is only strong as its weakest link. So we will see very shortly
August 29th, 2026 at 10:19 am
It’s hard to believe the only choices are/were giving away your season’s playback or getting your a## handed to you in a preseason game. We shall see…
August 29th, 2026 at 10:19 am
Playbook
August 29th, 2026 at 10:40 am
More of a white flag preseason. This could get ugly very early.
August 29th, 2026 at 10:49 am
Bowles #5 is wafting through Ray Jay. Phew!
August 29th, 2026 at 10:57 am
Wow we have crap for back up offensive lineman. Since we hold starters out during preseason we never got to see our offense play at all. We need to pick up at least 2 tackles as the guys playing the last few weeks can’t play at all.
This offense appears pathetic and I hope I’m wrong but there was no creativity showing up at all. I hope this isn’t what will happen when the games count or it will be a long year. Hoping our starters never get hurt is a horrible plan. Wtf Mr Licht, where is some depth at offensive tackle cause it surely isn’t on our team right now apparently
August 29th, 2026 at 11:09 am
It was a preseason game. They were mixing and matching players and looking for things that did not involve playing to win. And he certainly isn’t going to show his Cincinnati gameplan.
RELAX.
August 29th, 2026 at 11:09 am
Sam Says:
“Magically in 2 weeks we will be good. Yeah right”
We will be. The thing about preseason is that the focus isn’t about accessing the playbook, it’s about player evaluation. Teams never show the real offense in preseason.
Fans basing season predictions on preseason performances is silly. There have been Superbowl winners who lost all of their preseason games.
August 29th, 2026 at 11:14 am
Z Rob’s playcalling looks TERRIBLE so far.
August 29th, 2026 at 11:29 am
Never was high on Robinson. I think it was a decision made bc their No1 target went to LA. We will see what happens but wasn’t impressed with preseason. I get it, it’s vanilla, but still the running game was meh and not very many executed deep shots. Mostly plays 2-3 yards down field or behind the LOS. Screens were horrid.
August 29th, 2026 at 11:36 am
mj Says: “one of the worst games ive ever seen makes me scared for this offense, he was bad in atlanta,”
My thoughts exactly. What was Robinson’s great achievement in Atlanta (other than being able to beat the Bucs repeatedly) that gives this fan base so much confidence. He had a top RB, TE & WR, and did what exactly with it? Last season scored 1.6 points per game LESS than the Bucs!
August 29th, 2026 at 11:40 am
Seems like the Bucs have decided not to show anything they will be doing on offense or defense this year during the preseason and frankly, I’m a bit surprised by Joe that he is making any assumptions about what he calls “worthless preseason games”.
They truly are worthless. You learn nothing at all about the team unless the starters are all playing. Even when Baker did play for five whole plays last week, he, too, was missing most of the receivers and his tight end.
Nobody knows anything about this Bucs team or Zac Robinson right now. We won’t even get a glimpse into the future until week one. Until then, let the unfounded speculation begin. There’s nothing else to write about!
August 29th, 2026 at 11:43 am
I’ll tell ya whos team did look good. The better coach that we let walk out of the door in favor of keeping 🤢 I cant even say it anymore
August 29th, 2026 at 11:50 am
I’m pretty nervous after this whole week of being dominated, wtf do we have on our hands with Zach Robinson ?? I mean how many other real names visited one buc place when they were looking ? We need at least a new coach and his offensive staff at least, and that’s if we don’t figure it all out. There’s more to Mike walking the way he did. GM time as well.
August 29th, 2026 at 12:03 pm
Robinson has proven one thing.
Dixon is the MVP of the offense so far.
August 29th, 2026 at 1:22 pm
Suddenly I’m nervous about injuries again. The number of wins this team gets is inversely proportional to the number of injuries this team gets. This is especially true on the offensive line where the ability of the starters seems 1000x better than the ability of the backups. Dan Feeney is NOT AN NFL OFFENSIVE LINEMAN! He stunk out loud last season and isn’t playing any better now. What happened with Schrauth? He was a highly touted prospect I thought was going to play backup guard but got injured? Is he back? We desperately need him because every other backup is beyond lousy.
August 29th, 2026 at 1:47 pm
Not impressed at all. In fact, some of playcalling was downright awful.
If we see the sideways screen BS during the season then we are in trouble.
August 29th, 2026 at 2:18 pm
WE WON the FIRST 2 PRESEASON GAMES! LIGHTEN UP!
August 29th, 2026 at 2:30 pm
Good teams don’t always win all their exhibition games, but usually, for one of the games, they roll out their Number One offense, march briskly down the field for a score, and then sit them down. You show the world why your offense doesn’t need any more practice. If, this year, the purpose of the games was to find out what our players cannot do, mission accomplished.
August 29th, 2026 at 3:46 pm
SB~LV 🏈 Says:
August 29th, 2026 at 7:48 am
Liam and his coaching staff were displaying great chemistry last night smoking and joking on the sidelines
Because they BELIEVE in themselves
DUVALLLLL…. Prevailed in every scrimmage and then the game last night.
————————————-
Bucs fans are curious….. What do Coens nutz taste like bro?
August 29th, 2026 at 3:56 pm
Ugly. Couldn’t get through the 3rd quarter. Can’t even think of a game that looked worse than this. No O, no D special teams sucks. I’m worried.
August 29th, 2026 at 5:52 pm
7-10 and if the offense continues to struggle, 5-12 is more realistic. The chants for Tomlin and hell, Lane Kiffin, will be hard to ignore.
August 29th, 2026 at 8:02 pm
Duh. Dude wasn’t good before he got here. Not going to suddenly “become” under Toad’s tutelage.
August 29th, 2026 at 8:33 pm
Yes Sir.
August 29th, 2026 at 8:44 pm
I’ve seen enough preseason games to know that you can’t always get a true gauge of the team from it. Sometimes the coaches are trying to put players in tough spots to see how they respond. Some coaches go into these games trying to act like it’s the Super Bowl and they need to put a show on. Just depends on what the team is actually trying to get done. We’ll know soon enough.
August 29th, 2026 at 9:28 pm
“We’ll know soon enough.”
And until then, let’s pretend we have a clue. Gotta be tough to write about anything until the actual season starts. Still, gotta bang something out to keep the ad dollars rolling in and the equally clueless commenters, commenting.
August 29th, 2026 at 9:44 pm
ITS TIME TO GET WORRIED FOLKS! WE COULD BE SEEING A NEW COACH SOON!
August 29th, 2026 at 10:00 pm
Better have a lot up his sleeve. cause his O line can’t pass block
August 29th, 2026 at 10:03 pm
Scott McKirahan. “keep the ……and the equally clueless commenters, commenting.” First off Scott, speak for yourself. Second off. Have a great weekend.
Robinson and Mayfield seem to pair up well. Robinson played QB at Ok. State just before Mayfield played QB at OU. Robinson and Mayfield had 5 or 6 games with the Rams, in 2022, and they know a little bit about offense.
Don’t forget, we have a new passing game coordinator ( ex nfl qb ) and a hotshot young QB coach added to the mix. Hope they keep Daniels and Browning, I think Daniels has a little more upside, though.
Zac and Baker have gone through 3 preseason games, won 2 of them, discovered a young QB that appears to have the right stuff- And most importantly they haven’t put anything on film that’s gonna give our opponents a hint of what our offense is going to look like in 2 weeks and one day from now.
These guys are pros and we’re not. Zac and Baker have learned all they need to know from practice. They’re not about to show their hands in the preseason.
Anybody else watching any college football today? Nice!
August 29th, 2026 at 10:53 pm
Willy woka sez…
“ITS TIME TO GET WORRIED FOLKS! WE COULD BE SEEING A NEW COACH SOON!”
If you are “worried” about that you’ve missed alot of Blowez.
August 29th, 2026 at 11:04 pm
I am a grizzard fan.
Its still early to say much
August 30th, 2026 at 12:06 am
Zac Robinson. Starting to feel like Byron Leftwich post Arians. That worked out ok. Playoffs, division championship, 8-9 record and a playoff bludgeoning at the hands of the nosediving Cowboys. And we had Tom Brady at QB.
So it kind of worked out, if we’re into the B-league type thing.