Did Mishandling Of Preseason, Summer Cost The Bucs?
November 15th, 2026
Bucs playcaller Zac Robinson.
Interesting words coming from inside One Buc Palace.
The Bucs offense saw only two short drives during the 2026 preseason. Baker Mayfield completed two short passes for 10 yards.
Did the offense look ready in Week 1? Well, Mayfield sure wasn’t ready; he fumbled three times.
Collectively, the veteran Bucs offensive line looked sad through the first four weeks of the season.
Was this tied to the first-team offense not seeing enough August reps? Offensive coordinator Zac Robinson sounds like a guy who believes that, per his comments on the Buccaneers Radio Network last week.
“We didn’t feel like we had these guys [on the offensive line] really going until the very first start of the year, and as much as you practice throughout training camp and you practice — you know, Wednesday, Thursday leading up to a game — nothing is going to simulate the game,” Robinson said after being asked about the O-line needing time to get its game strong.
” I mean, as much as we wanna say, ‘Hey, it’s gonna be just like the game, it’s gonna be just like practice.’ The games are the games and it’s gonna always be that way.
“And so you need those game reps and that’s at every position, but especially offensive line when that group has to be so in unison and all five playing as one. So I think that was a lot of it at the beginning of the year is just playing games together again, getting used to handling movement in real-time and handling different looks.”
Joe won’t ever say playing starters in preseason is critical to team success. But it certainly could be if coaches assess certain starters — or a specific team unit — to be not looking game-ready in practice.
It sounds like the folks at One Buc Palace didn’t adjust. Somebody should have demanded the O-line get more preseason reps or different and tougher work in practice.
Back in 2021, Tom Brady played in two preseason games and was 12 of 16 passing for 163 yards and 1 touchdown — at 44 years old. Rest assured his starting veteran offensive line was in front of him.
November 15th, 2026 at 10:36 am
Worthless pre-season games??? !!!
November 15th, 2026 at 10:44 am
^^^^^^^^^^
Worthless preseason games indeed.
November 15th, 2026 at 10:45 am
I don’t actually keep a notebook about past years preseason games, but I don’t think the unit played together in preseason in most recent preseasons either. Anybody know?
November 15th, 2026 at 10:51 am
The Todd Bowes philosophy was spelled out perfectly. Adjust on the fly, but never really adjust.
Losing = Winning
NFCS title = SB championship
Pick 6’s from Baker = TD passes
Defensive breakdowns in the 4th quarter = 1985 Bears defense
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
November 15th, 2026 at 11:05 am
Yes Munchy and I have been saying that all year. The fear of injury backfired. The offense,was getting better then Baker went down and we had,a backup literally no one wanted to draft. Hiring Garrapolo would have helped. The good news is our division is terrible. Just run the ball and do p!ay action on first down which is,what worked for Baker in Cleve.
November 15th, 2026 at 11:11 am
Just seen Baker is in doubt for next weeks game.
November 15th, 2026 at 11:14 am
Robinson is so lame
November 15th, 2026 at 11:19 am
Robinson keeps making excuses for his own offensive ineptitude. A rock could call better plays in rhythm than him. I truly can’t believe he wasn’t fired after the last game to allow 2 weeks to get an assistant caught up. Almost guarantee we would have 3-7 additional points per game. 1st down – run or presnap penalty. 2nd down – sideline throw for a loss. 3rd and long as always – try a 30+ yard play. Punt. Top 3 worst OC in football
November 15th, 2026 at 11:21 am
They miss handled the off-season, by not firing Bowles
November 15th, 2026 at 11:24 am
Suddenly preseason games don’t seem so worthless now.
November 15th, 2026 at 11:25 am
Mishandling of preseason? Give me a break. How about Mishandling of coaching staff? I blame all current Buc woes on one entity, THE GLAZER FAMILY. Nobody else. Hell Joe, You’d hang around too and collect a few million if your employer turns its head. Bowles is just hanging on. Can’t blame him or his OC who was not a winner in Atlanta. 3-6 means you are 3 games below 500. Thats horrible. Owners dug this grave and are now trying to spray air freshner on it. We suck..Period.
November 15th, 2026 at 12:06 pm
Coaching makes all the difference. You have to applaud Todd Bowles for turning around his Defense. Zak Robinson has failed the offense miserly. A new OC is a top priority. The question is WHEN? Can Bruce Arians be sweet talked into accepting the role as OC or does Todd Bowles have to take a step down to Defensive Coordinator. Change is a coming!
November 15th, 2026 at 12:07 pm
Here’s an easy button:
1) fire todd, hire grant udinski
2) hire dan Quinn as dc
3) sign Sam laporta
4) draft Becker
That’s it.
November 15th, 2026 at 12:20 pm
Since when has loyalty ever have precedence over money(profit) in the NFL. FIRE both HC’s Bowles and Quinn and make Quinn DC in Tampa and Bowles DC in Detroit. Resign Bruce Arians HC in Tampa and Buc fans who cares what Detroit does for a HC.
November 15th, 2026 at 12:25 pm
Nutty professor, public service announcement. A line of tilted head crying/ smiling Emojis is probably the gayest thing on the internet. Not that there’s anything wrong with that of course. Please keep at it. Because I was just kidding. Not gay at all. And that’s me being sarcastic.
November 15th, 2026 at 12:42 pm
Steven007 Says:
November 15th, 2026 at 12:25 pm
Nutty professor, public service announcement. A line of tilted head crying/ smiling Emojis is probably the gayest thing on the internet. Not that there’s anything wrong with that of course. Please keep at it. Because I was just kidding. Not gay at all. And that’s me being sarcastic.
———
LOL!
November 15th, 2026 at 12:46 pm
It obviously takes time for every team’s Oline to gel, so why has it taken so long for ours, Zac?
Credit to him for the run blocking scheme but the pass blocking is poor and the overall passing scheme is awful.
Figure it out this week and let’s role!
November 15th, 2026 at 1:04 pm
SQUIRRELY, ON THE GLACIER, BOYS FOR NOT GETTING THINGS DONE WHEN THEY HAD THE CHANCE. I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY HIRED AN OFFENSIVE COACH FROM A LOSING FALCONS. TEAM, THAT WAS WORSE THAN WE WERE. AND YOU EXPECTED A BETTER OFFENSE. ARE YOU OUT YOUR MIND ? ZACK HAS NO CLUE HOW TO RUN A PASSING OFFENSE. GODWIN IS HEALTHY AND IS THERE ONLY TO BLOCK. ? WHAT IS THAT ALL ABOUT? HE SITS DOWN, HEARST, THE GUY NEEDS REPS ! DOES HE EVEN KNOW HOW TO TEACH SEPARATION FOR HIS RECEIVERS ? COHEN NEVER HAD A PROBLEM. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU HAVE OWNERS WHO ARE NOT FOOTBALL PEOPLE . YOUR FATHER BLESS HIS SOUL WAS A REAL FOOTBALL PERSON WHO REALLY WANTED TO WIN, AND HE DID. GLAZER BOYS NOT SO MUCH!
November 15th, 2026 at 5:00 pm
Baker is and has been in a walking boot and we waste time on Zach And Bruce. Nice!!!
November 15th, 2026 at 5:02 pm
Ya think?
November 15th, 2026 at 5:09 pm
I think this is a red herring. Given how the defense forced 5 turnovers against Chicago, but the offense was completely useless in taking advantage of those opportunities points to a much deeper malaise. Nonsense talk about preseason is a distraction at best.
November 15th, 2026 at 5:33 pm
I guarantee Brady played in the preseason because he thought he needed to. If Brady thinks he needs to play in the preseason, I think everyone needs to play in the preseason.
November 15th, 2026 at 5:54 pm
I don’t buy it. This logic would mean every NFL line would start out slow.
Too bad ZRob is too stubborn to use his friends Coens schemes that worked so well. Instead ZRob wastes camp time installing a wide zone scheme that didn’t work under Coen. I don’t know why the pass pro started out poorly and hasn’t gotten much better.