SI.com: Bucs Will Have A Losing Record
May 19th, 2025
“You sure about that?”
The Bucs had a top-five offense last year and return all starters. The Bucs even added to their high-powered offense by drafting a receiver in the first round.
And, the Bucs have a franchise quarterback. The Bucs also loaded up on defensive players in the draft in their quest for a five-peat of the NFC South title.
But no! Gilberto Manzano of SI.com is not impressed.
He thinks the work Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht and Bucs coach Todd Bowles have done in the offseason signals a collapse coming soon.
Hey, if you are wrong about a team imploding, keep at it. After a few years, you might get it right.
Manzano predicts the Bucs will have a losing record this season and the new kings of the NFC South will be Dave Canales and the Stinking Panthers. In fact, Manzano has the Bucs finishing in third place behind the Dixie Chicks.
Bu it seems Manzano is trying to cover himself, just in case he flubs like so many national stenographers have repeatedly over the years.
It’s probably not wise to doubt the Buccaneers, who have won four consecutive NFC South titles. However, Baker Mayfield, who will be without former offensive coordinator Liam Coen, has a tough slate, including road matchups against the Texans, Lions, Bills and Rams. The Buccaneers can prove they’re still the team to beat in the division by knocking off the Falcons at home in Week 1.
This is just weird and Joe can only guess folks still either cannot embrace Mayfield as a franchise quarterback or they simply detest him.
Joe has never seen a Bucs team consistently win year after year and have folks outside Florida treat them like a case of jock rot.
If any dude on national sports radio or in a nationally publication like The Athletic or SI.com or some such place ever typed an ill word about Lamar Jackson, he’d be gaslit so badly he might lose his career. Mayfield has just one more playoff loss than Jackson. One! You will *never* hear that on BSPN, or maybe not even NFL Network.
The only thing Joe can think of is the national sports media ranks are overpopulated with former Browns fans and Ohio State and Texas grads — or Mayfield must have really, really p!ssed off the fourth estate before joining the Bucs.
May 19th, 2025 at 3:52 am
Browns fans love Mayfield. There is a poster on this site who says he followed Baker and gave up on Browns, even.
The national media hate Baker for unknown reasons. He doesn’t kowtow, I guess. Same with Belichick. It seems almost political.
May 19th, 2025 at 4:29 am
I think the Mayfield hate started at Oklahoma, Cowherd (say what you want, he has pull) absolutely bashed him in the draft process, and then the Hulu commercials at Cleveland. I always liked him and the only reason I didn’t hop on the bandwagon immediately was because of a certain draft pick that came out of Florida at the same position. I’ve been all in on Baker as Bucs qb for a while now, but the country won’t be until he at least reaches and balls out in the NFC championship or superbowl. And yes, he has to ball out. If he game manages it, he won’t get the respect he deserves.
May 19th, 2025 at 4:32 am
Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. Manzano & SI are using shock & awe to increase readership (translated $$$).
May 19th, 2025 at 4:54 am
Sorry Joe but the media no longer concerns itself with truth. At all!
It has always been bad but it has gotten blatantly bad in the last few years.
Third behind Carolina and Atlanta?
There ya go Joe! you did it! We got some bulletin board material! Keep it coming Sir!
Go Bucs!
May 19th, 2025 at 5:15 am
Manzano’s predictions last year were abysmal so I’ll take it. Although it should be noted that he was spot on in stating that the Bucs defense would be solid
May 19th, 2025 at 5:16 am
Yes, the last sentence was intended as sarcasm.
May 19th, 2025 at 5:23 am
There’s a lot more than one person here that is an exbrown fan.
Its really not that hard to figure out Joe. Next to food , water and air there’s nothing that drives Humans more than the desire to be right and nothing we hate more than being proven wrong.
rewind three years ago and Baker was DEFINTELY done , a Heisman bust, never would start again in this league . No doubt. Book it . Anyone who thought otherwise was a football fool. I can’ tell you the amount of times I was called a moron . The only one that still believed in him was his wife and a few diehard baker fans ( a lot of them Browns fans) . Thankfully among them was McVay and a coach named Bowles.
Baker made a fool of a lot of people and people HATE when that happens. It burns them down to their core. You see it in these comments just about every week. Yeah sure they don’t want to look even bigger fools so they give their flowers to his two great seasons here but deep down they want revenge. If he throws a pick or there’s a glimmer of the Bucs not getting the super bowl ring they will spin and seize on it in a second as “evidence” they were right all along.
Hell has no fury like an ego burned.
The good news is that’s going to stay out there like the sky is blue on a clear day. Its good because equally the chip on his shoulder will never go away. Unless he wins two or or super bowls its there to say because even one will be considered a fluke by the haters.
May 19th, 2025 at 5:35 am
That would be 8-9 with Bowles keeping it close.
May 19th, 2025 at 5:40 am
BINGO
May 19th, 2025 at 5:44 am
Well, those 4 road games are tough games and the opening game against Falcons is very important in terms of season expectations.
The writer may be over rating the Falcons and Panthers, but there’s no denying Bucs have a tougher schedule than the other teams in division.
May 19th, 2025 at 6:23 am
Gilberto Manzano. LOLOLOL.
May 19th, 2025 at 6:39 am
without actually saying it, the subliminal message is – “NO FAITH IN BOWLES” – doesn’t want to piss off the org. – just throws shade on baker – wants to look like a sports guru if the bucs falter. this is bowles time to show his metal. offense will be just fine for 3rd straight year. the defense has to step big time. that’s bowles’ specialty. are you paying attention coach?
May 19th, 2025 at 6:40 am
it isnt crazy to suggest the bucs will finish around .500 for the season, that is right around bowles average as a HC.
May 19th, 2025 at 6:46 am
If this roster was in Dallas the sports media would be on Baker so hard his wife would divorce him for having an affair.
May 19th, 2025 at 6:53 am
Philly fans hates us. He is one. lol
May 19th, 2025 at 7:06 am
The Panthers? Joe, you’re living proof, almost anyone can have a take, get it printed, and have it read by many no matter how nutty it might be.
May 19th, 2025 at 7:17 am
GilBURPo Manzero and his fellow knob polishers at SI will be asking me if I want fries with that when that whole organization goes bankrupt. No salt, please.
May 19th, 2025 at 7:40 am
The Panthers could be scary good. Bucs have a path to 10 wins. Baker’s got to stay in the pocket for that to happen. No more running QB cosplay.
May 19th, 2025 at 7:40 am
I was a browns fan for 55 years until they intentionally attempted to ruin Baker’s career and his reputation to sugar-coat bringing in a guy with a disgusting reputation like Deshaun Watson. I stuck with Baker and am now a Bucs fan because of him. Everybody gets to have their opinion but I believe in Baker and this team and look forward to them proving Manzano wrong.
May 19th, 2025 at 7:47 am
When healthy, didn’t the Nucs win some road games against some pretty tough teams season?
Haven’t the Bucs improved in almost every area of weakness from last year?
I truly think his take could happen if the Bucs have even worse injuries this year than last year and the Saints and Panthers both stay 95% healthy.
Odds of that happening are pretty slim. If the Bucs stay healthy, we win between 11 – 13 games. if we have a ton of injuries, we could still pull off 10 wins like last season. To have a losing record, Baker has to get hurt… and for most of the season, fully on IR, not just miss two or three games.
This writer isn’t watching our team closely… probably isn’t watching any team in the NFC South very closely.
May 19th, 2025 at 7:48 am
Not referring to the Canucks… LOL
May 19th, 2025 at 7:58 am
The national media is all about the agenda and not the message.
Everything is about MONEY
May 19th, 2025 at 8:01 am
The 4th Estate has morphed into a 5th column since the rise of Progressive collectivism, Their credibility has all but been eroded by their Pravda like lies and misinformation. Sorry did not mean to sound on politics.
Personally I believe Baker and the Bucs are going to turn the NFL hierarchy on it’s head this year as the Bucs will invade and bully and dominate the so called powers. Baker will step to the front of the line this year, Go Bucs.
May 19th, 2025 at 8:01 am
Doesn’t matter what others think. What matters is how the Bucs perform. There’s a lot of optimism here in Buc’s Nation. The one major unknown is how Grizzard will perform. The offense is ready to roll and the defense should be much improved. If Grizzard is on his game, no way we finish 3rd in the Division.
May 19th, 2025 at 8:03 am
Make sure you tape the SI article to Baker,s locker. He lives to prove people wrong. It has to do with his college bravado. THey still hate him for it. Yes Ohio state grads are every where including the VP. Baker made the careers of Canoli and Last years guy not the other way around. They will fail without Baker. The new OC will walk with generational wealth.
May 19th, 2025 at 8:10 am
“It’s probably not wise to doubt the Buccaneers”. Manzano may have a point.
May 19th, 2025 at 8:11 am
He should have caught himself right there.
May 19th, 2025 at 8:16 am
The Bucs lost 5 games last year by one score or less.
They could have easily been a 12/13 win team. They could also have been a 6 win team…
It will be the same this year. Winning the close games will determine the outcome.
I predict 9/10 wins. Same as last season’s prediction.
I do believe the Bucs improved in two crucial areas this off-season. Our pass rush and defensive backfield will both be better in 2025.
Hopefully that will help improve enough to win more of those close games.
May 19th, 2025 at 8:17 am
Yep. He should have caught himself right there.
May 19th, 2025 at 8:29 am
so he thinks 0 and 4 in the tough road games and 8 and 5 in the rest. makes sense entirely possible. although we don’t exactly love home games. often play best on the road. we’re unpredictable, honestly. baker hurt, we lose every game just about.
May 19th, 2025 at 8:49 am
2024 preseason sched. had bucs with 7 non-conf. tough games. det -phil -balt – kc – sf – chargers – dall. went 3-4 with 3 losses by less than 1 score. 2025 tough games – hous – phil- sf – detr – seat – buff – rams. if you flip it to 4-3 it will give you a little cushion to be 10-7 or 11-6. the 2 falcons games are HUGE. think tiebreaker
May 19th, 2025 at 8:49 am
@Becky, I definitely see your point. There ought to be an awfully lot of ex browns fans. Baker got off to a slightly Shakey start but he showed steady improvement. Even with total instability from the constant coaching changes. Then in 2021 he gets a terrible shoulder injury. I can not for the life of me figure out why the heck they put Baker out there if he was hurt that bad. Then they simply dump him to the second worst team in the league, besides themselves. Then they sign the most reviled player in the league who had sat out an entire year and was facing almost 30 sexual harassment cases. The cherry on top: they gave him a 5 year $230 million fully guaranteed contract…structure in such a way as to minimize the effects of the huge suspension he was certainly facing. It turned out to be 11 games. Then he stunk the place up. Well, I guess hardly playing for almost 2 years will do that. Then his second year he plays like crap and only played in 6 games. The next year he stunk but he managed to play in 7 games before he ruptured his Achilles. Apparently he did something stupid and ruptured that same tendon again. He is unlikely to play at all this year, but the team simply cannot afford to cut him. Then just when you think browns fans have suffered enough, the guy they trashed has two highly successful years after taking over for Tom Brady.
May 19th, 2025 at 8:52 am
All off-season, if Brady was still hear, with this team, media is talking Bucs to the Super Bowl, lol, even he was closing in on 50 years old, and it would be more than name recognition drawing the attention, I think it would be very real. I don’t know how Brady would feel about the style of play calling Canales/Coen ushered in, but he’d be salivating to have Oline and the weapons this team currently has.
I don’t believe we’re a losing record team, this is a damn good football team, and we’re still playing in weaker division. That’s where SI is off, but they have this gut feeling on Baker, like many of the talking heads do, that he’s simply not the guy. Talented, but not the guy. This was before everything fell apart in Cleveland. The National medial wasn’t talking him up like he was the guy to take on Mahomes, and he wasn’t absent of talent on some of those Cleveland teams. He had a hard enough time dealing with his own division, and who could blame him.
Here comes the fan ridicule…but it’s my gut, for all the stats these last 2 seasons, Baker hasn’t really shown any of us with confidence, when we have 60 seconds left in a game, with the ball, and we need a score and/or ice a game, that he’s going to be “the guy” to put this thing away. Giving me 1 or 2 examples against sub-par football teams doesn’t cut it. Let’s see it done in one of 4 or 5 primetime games we have this season. Let’s see it done in the playoffs. You see these situations happen more often than you think and why? NFL games are decided by a score or less, Vegas posts those odds in almost every damn game, and regardless of how bad our defense was for 3 quarters, or how poor the offense was for the first half of football. It mostly comes down to a final possession of a game. If we get that possession, that is the best most fans of any team can hope for. We need Baker to find that extra gear in those moments.
Do not believe for one moment, I’d root against Baker or this team in order to validate any of my opinions. There is a ton of context when it comes to any of these debates and without having inside knowledge of what really happened on any specific play, we’re speculating. I wish the best for this kid. As he goes, so does this team.
May 19th, 2025 at 9:11 am
brady had to have gronk. i’ll take baker over old man brady, especially divorced brady
May 19th, 2025 at 9:23 am
I personally would rather have ALL the “experts” poo pooing the Bucs than heaping praise on them. They always seem to fall on their faces when everyone is saying how great they are! They play better when carrying chips on their shoulders. They need to toughen up mentally!
May 19th, 2025 at 9:24 am
I don’t think this prediction has anything to do with Baker Mayfield. This offense can score 42 points a game and still lose by 3 on a weekly basis.
Until Bowles figures out how to not play turtle defense when it matters most, this team will always be on the verge of losing one score games.
May 19th, 2025 at 9:34 am
message to si.com – the numbers don’t add up dummy. i think the bucs only had 2 really bad games last year – denver and baltimore. how many other teams only had 1, 2 or maybe 3? everyone knows most good teams will improve, but the bucs str. of sched. is about the same. with hopefully improvement on the defense,
and limited injuries you’re looking at 10 to 12 wins. do proper research before you post stupid projections.
May 19th, 2025 at 9:46 am
I am constantly amazed at how many ex-browns fans are here; amazed and proud! Integrity, to me, is what defines us. And the Bucs have integrity. That, combined with the talent of our roster, will see us again win our division. Barring major injuries, i can see us going all the way this year
May 19th, 2025 at 9:57 am
TBMike you are spot on
May 19th, 2025 at 9:58 am
Zoocomics
Great post. Very reasonable and accurate.
There’s still a lot a question marks about this team. Even though the offensive players are returning they have a rookie playcaller. Who knows how that’s going to go.
No excuses for Baker this year. Hurts has had a different playcaller every year for the past 10 years. Top tier QBs find a way to get it done.
I’m hoping for the best. Go Bucs.
May 19th, 2025 at 10:09 am
Zoocomics. You know not of what you speak. Show me 1 single example of Baker Mayfield having the ball with 1 minute left and the chance to go ahead or tie it and not being able to do it. You can’t because every single time he has. Are you watching football games or are you stewing in your snarky little mind about ways to spew misinformation? You may say the Detroit playoff game but I was there. Our team played their guts out and Mayfield was the best player on the field that day. Please, please Stop! Bakers superpowers are his leadership qualities and his clutch performances. Always have been and always will be.
May 19th, 2025 at 10:10 am
If the Bucs end up with a losing record it will be due to the defense and subpar HC/DC!
The offense has proven itself and worthy of high expectation…
May 19th, 2025 at 10:10 am
westernpennafan Says:
May 19th, 2025 at 8:01 am
Yeah, okay, it’s the left? Because those icons of journalistic integrity — FuxNooz, OAN, and talking heads like Tucker (with their pro-Russian state propaganda) are really the ones dispensing truth? Jee Zuss Ayche Kreist… The culty delusion of fascism-loving “patri0ts” is the rotting corpse of the decline of truth.
May 19th, 2025 at 10:15 am
As long as Bowles is HC the Bucs will hover around .500
Thats his record with the Bucs and this year will be no different. 9-8 or 8-9 and hopefully fired at end of season.
May 19th, 2025 at 10:18 am
FilthyAnimal. If I had to choose Freedom of the Press would be right up there at the top. westernpennafan, bark up another tree.
May 19th, 2025 at 10:20 am
Zoo, I would think the 4th quarter drive and score with 27 seconds left to tie the game against the superbowl team Kansas City would qualify. To win. all they had to do was a little toss for 2 instead of kicking for 1. At the Rams he drove 98 yards with 1 minute left. There are others, 10 others to be exact.
May 19th, 2025 at 10:22 am
I think Baker has always been a great guy that would give someone the shirt off his back especially when it comes to friends and teammates. But he also had a volatile side with little patience for the mendacity of some in media circles and when he was pushed into a corner he would hit back. But as we see now he has matured a lot and has a lot more patience with media and seems to get along with everyone. Maybe he’s even learned to forgive which is part of the spiritual transformation that we have recently heard him talk about. We saw an example of that before a preseason game when he was seen talking to and sharing a hug with Odell Beckham. After what happened between he and OBJ in Cleveland it would be understandable if he held a grudge. So the chip on the shoulder and the fire in the belly is still there I think, he just channels it wisely now.
May 19th, 2025 at 10:53 am
Sports Illustrated is only good for two things ,one their bathing suit issue which they have almost screwed that up more than once and two to use as a coaster when you are watching tv so you don’t stain the coffee table! that is it, pure trash otherwise
May 19th, 2025 at 11:00 am
Bucs need to clock in a 12 win season to cement their legitimacy.
All the pieces are in place. Now they need to make it happen.
May 19th, 2025 at 11:03 am
Zoo, you know the Rams go ahead 98 yard drive culminating with a 30 yard pass with 10 seconds left on the clock is the longest drive to win in 45 seasons. I would think that would count for something. Especially since he only had the playbook for 48 hours including the flight out. Old man Baker is plenty capable and you can take that one to the bank. If this team stays healthy, cuts out the drive killing mistakes and Grizz proves out, this team will go all the way but those 3 have to happen as with any team.
May 19th, 2025 at 11:10 am
Baker has always been undervalued by the national sport hacks and this particular dude at SI is merely giving the Bucs some bulletin board material for next season. I can see where many could doubt the Bucs in major road games, particularly the ones at prime time because of Bowles being unable to dial up a win on the mainstage since the playoff win over Philly. Hopefully the Bucs just play with a chip on their shoulder and bring home another division title!
May 19th, 2025 at 11:19 am
All conjecture at this point. Currently, every team in the NFL is 17-0. Everybody is a guru and talking trash. The games still have to be played. No faking then. The real truth will be exposed once the season is about halfway. Good Luck Bucs.
May 19th, 2025 at 11:32 am
Does this guy watch football?
On paper, they might finally have their 4 man pass rush. If that is the case, they are a legit Super Bowl contender, potentially the highest scoring offense in the NFL, and their schedule sets up pretty well. 13 wins.
May 19th, 2025 at 11:49 am
Old saying #1: “Opinions are like A-holes, everybody’s got one.”
Injuries and luck play a huge part in the NFL. A few unlucky bounces and a few key injuries, and the Bucs could lose a lot of close games to end up with a losing record. Conversely, this could also happen to any other team in the division.
Old saying #2: “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”
Hopefully, the Bucs can use this article as bulletin board motivation this season.,
May 19th, 2025 at 12:06 pm
As valid as any other guess. They could win 5 or 15. So could 10 other teams in the NFC.
May 19th, 2025 at 12:12 pm
Yes Larrd, that was me – though I don’t remember what name I posted under.
I was born a Crapland Browstains fan and faithfully suffered for 50 years. When they did what they did to Baker – making him play in a bodycast then throwing him and 3 first rounders away for a PoS like Watson – I said, “FU Crapland! I’m done.”
Now I root for whatever team Baker is on. And being from Ohio, I’m happy the Bucs took Ebuka. So, here I am trying to learn how to be a Bucs fan. And, the fact that your GM takes a player’s character into account is a mega bonus.
May 19th, 2025 at 12:17 pm
Anything less than 10 wins is grounds for dismissal barring catastrophic injuries to key players.