Buccaneers Opponents Have A Combined 29-16 Record
October 25th, 2026
Are the Bucs the best 2-5 team in the history of football?
It’s a ridiculous question, but it almost feels like a reasonable one on a happy Victory Sunday night. That’s “happy” if you’re not hoping for a top-5 draft pick.
The Bucs blew out a solid Panthers team today 43-13 at Carolina.
One thought-provoking nugget about these Bucs is the combined strength of the teams they’ve played. Bucs opponents through seven weeks have a combined record of 29-16, which is ridiculously good.
Here’s the list:
Bengals 4-2
Browns 5-2
Vikings 6-0
Packers 4-3
Cowboys 2-4
Steelers 5-2
Panthers 3-3
For those keeping score at home, the two-win Bucs beat the sad Cowboys in addition to the Panthers today.
Of course, all that really matters is the outcome of the Bucs-Falcons game Sunday in Tampa. Atlanta (3-4) is a full game ahead of the Bucs in the NFC South landfill standings. And for Joe, the game after that in Chicago is just as critical.
If the Bucs beat Atlanta and lose to Chicago to sit at 3-6 at Tampa Bay’s bye week, then the Bucs would need to finish 6-2 just to have a winning regular season. That may seem realistic today, but would remains more hope and prayer than anything else with a 3-6 record.
October 25th, 2026 at 9:35 pm
So they are a bad team who can beat other bad teams. Stop talking playoffs. It’s like me saying I have a chance to bang sydney Sweeney in 2026
October 25th, 2026 at 9:39 pm
The Vikings are trash
October 25th, 2026 at 9:52 pm
Itzok. We’ve got more than a puncher’s chance of making the playoffs. You don’t have a chance in hell of banging Sydney Sweeney in 2026 or any other year. So…there’s that.
October 25th, 2026 at 9:55 pm
The Colts are also trash, along with a bunch of other teams this year. The Falcons aren’t really that good, yet they beat the 49ers today. Nothing really makes much sense to me this year, so I’m going to take this win and be happy about it. We just beat the leaders in the NFC South, and right now, that’s worth something.
But it also makes me question how rigged the NFL is with all the betting involved now. That Falcons game had to destroy so many huge money bets, so it makes me go…HMMM?
October 25th, 2026 at 9:55 pm
Youngbucs. Wrong. They are allowing barely 12 points per game. No other team in the league is remotely competing with them in this all important defensive statistic.
October 25th, 2026 at 9:59 pm
I want wins but the brass won’t fire Bowels if he keeps winng.
I don’t want to be a game above or below 500 and win a bad division because that’s what Bowels is at best, he has a 62 & 78 (.442 win %) career record.
Fire Bowels and go get Flores after the season.
With our D he would great, look at what he’s doing with the Vikings!
October 25th, 2026 at 10:04 pm
We are the best team in the nfc south. We will win the divsion at 8-9.
October 25th, 2026 at 10:05 pm
Shout out to Otton and the other TEs for a stellar day blocking!
On special teams, David Walker drilled his guy so hard and knocked his dude into the returner and knocked both their a$$es flat. It’s about the 2:30 mark before halftime.
Outstanding effort by all. Great job Bowles and Zac. Keep it up!
October 25th, 2026 at 10:13 pm
“And we’ll have fun fun fun ’til the Falcons take the football away.”
It is amazing how easy this game looks when you can run the ball and stop the other guys’ running and don’t give it away. Unfortunately, I do not expect Atlanta to be that easy to run on.
October 25th, 2026 at 10:14 pm
Welp…I’m happy for a week.
October 25th, 2026 at 10:16 pm
And we played all of these teams close.
October 25th, 2026 at 10:17 pm
The opponents’ records don’t mean this team doesn’t suck.
Let’s see what happens next week. The koolaid may not taste as good. I’m not predicting rainbows and unicorns.
October 25th, 2026 at 10:23 pm
Looking at 5 or 6 win season realistically
October 25th, 2026 at 10:23 pm
Of any1 thinks this is a super bowl team
October 25th, 2026 at 10:29 pm
Skunk, you’re spewing the same crap on each post. Like I’ve asked you before, what exactly would your approach be at this point? Purposefully lose? Tell your players to play but just not that hard? Seriously, given what you said over and over again, what is your suggestion?
October 25th, 2026 at 10:34 pm
We were all thinking the same thing during halftime, if anyone could blow it it’s Bowles.
October 25th, 2026 at 10:48 pm
@Steven007,
I don’t expect players to roll over. I’m happy for the players. At the same time, it doesn’t really help the future. I don’t have any suggestions for the players except keep playing. The front office should be unloading players that aren’t part of the future.
My suggestion for fans is to not become intoxicated with one win and to not be in denial about the implications if the players manage to save Bowles job. It’s not good.
4+ years of Bowles has crushed my enthusiasm for the team until he’s replaced.
October 25th, 2026 at 11:05 pm
Skunk, I give you credit for answering the question in a logical way. I wasn’t expecting that to be honest. Based on your brazen, repeated comments, basically criticizing fans who were happy about the win. I too am happy about the win. I too don’t want Todd here any longer. As I’ve said elsewhere, it’s a conundrum. But I’ll be rooting for the victory next week as well. And wishing we move on from the coach at the end of the year regardless. How we get there, I don’t know. It’s above my pay grade as a fan. But shockingly we are still in this thing. And so as a fan, I’m pulling for my team. No matter what, any of us wish, decisions will be made by people with little regard for our opinion.
October 25th, 2026 at 11:05 pm
A certain fan of this here site made this same point earlier today, Joe. And we did beat a winning team today.
October 25th, 2026 at 11:14 pm
This team is doing what we expected them to do. Beat crappy teams in a crappy division. When is the last time this squad has had a quality win against a really good team? Its been awhile, lets put it like that. After seeing ATL beat the niners they are my pick to win this short bus division. For those that think this team has a shot how many yards did BM throw for today? You can’t run the ball every play. Defenses are going to adjust for this one dimensional offense. Run the ball by all means but mix in play action to keep the D guessing.
October 25th, 2026 at 11:20 pm
2-5 with a +11 point differential…. We haven’t been able to win close games against good teams. Sometimes feels like EVERYTHING must go right for us to win, then we look awesome. The offense is not explosive enough, and Bowles defense works much better with a lead. I get the feeling we’ll look all world and all cheeks all year.
October 25th, 2026 at 11:21 pm
Every year the team looks good during parts of the season but go on losing streaks that that make it difficult to recover from. This one happened at the beginning of the year, Bucs didnt look prepared to start the season and werent prepared for Baker getting injured.The team plays too many close games to go 6-2 or whatever they need. At least theres still a mathematical chance
October 25th, 2026 at 11:23 pm
I ain’t fallin’ for no banana in the tail pipe
October 25th, 2026 at 11:30 pm
I will never root for my team to lose not matter how much I dislike a coach , GM or player. If not a real fan if you root for your team to lose.
October 25th, 2026 at 11:30 pm
SkunkApe Says:
“@Steven007,
I don’t expect players to roll over. I’m happy for the players. At the same time, it doesn’t really help the future. I don’t have any suggestions for the players except keep playing. The front office should be unloading players that aren’t part of the future.”
I can see why you feel that way, but my personal thought is that it would be a mistake.
I’ll explain why I think so:
I don’t believe Todd Bowles will coach another year of football. I think this is his last hurrah…after this season I believe he will retire. I believe if he (impossibly) wins a Superbowl, he will choose to retire on a high note.
I believe that, even if he does not wish to retire, if this team doesn’t reach the NFC Championship game, the Glazers would move on.
I also understand that if we lose less than 2 more games, we can make the playoffs for sure. I we lose 3 more games, we will have to do some hoping to make the playoffs…but that 30 point difference today will help in that regard in our division…if we need a tie breaker.
So, 4 more losses from now, we would be fully out of the race for the playoffs.
And reaching those 4 more losses would take us past the trade deadline.
Todd Bowles won’t be fired or retire until after the season. Winning now will increase the trade value of certain players.
We need most of our players right now. We cannot reach the NFC Championship game without making the playoffs, which means winning the division.
Either way, Todd is gone after the season. That NFC Championship game would mean he’d found his high mark.
October 25th, 2026 at 11:37 pm
I’m not confident Todd will retire or that the Glazers would fire him. After last year, he should have been canned, but the owners decided to invest in mediocrity. I don’t have any faith they wouldn’t do the same again. So, I see no other choice than to hope for results that make the decision inevitable. Simple as that.
October 25th, 2026 at 11:41 pm
Yeah, Confido75. You make an awesome point. Our passer has dominated the league in yards and touchdowns the last 3 years. Why in the world should we have passed it today? . They could not stop our run. What a gift to us, give Baker’s thumb a little more time.
Our passing was 7-11 for 75 yards and a touchdown. Godwin dropped a pass. But he converted a couple 3rd downs, too. Tez had a nice 3rd down conversion to go with his touchdown. On one red zone visit, Baker took 3 straight shots. The first was a perfectly layered dime to Otten that, I believe, hit both of Otten’s hands and his head. The second a TD dime to Godwin that was called back by Bucky’s illegal motion. The third was a TD to Tez.
We didn’t have to show Hurst or Otten. Why would we? I’ve seen Baker throwing to Hurst and Otten. He can. And we do have a passing game to our RBs. The time will come when we need it. We’ve got it.
I’m positive Baker and Zac would love every game to be able to run all the time. But suggesting we are a one dimensional offense? Nonsense.
October 25th, 2026 at 11:47 pm
I love the passion we played with today. If we continue to play hard and with passion, we have a chance to go on a run.
I’m really surprised by how good our D is this year (until late in games when Bowles goes into Prevent mode).
Which didn’t even matter today, so that’s great.
October 26th, 2026 at 12:19 am
They won the most important game of the season yet in a team win…this build character and belief… Passing game is broke and that will require work to fix..but defense has played great and the run game looks great.we have 50 50 chance to beat the falcons I think if baker plays decent we can get a win.
Will be tied for 2nd place in our division and we beat number 1 today definitively.
Let’s celebrate the wins and see where this can go ..
Are we a super bowl team looking team hope…but wile can win this division still and get a ticket to see what we can do.sybe the offense catches fire and defense keeps up the play..run looking the way it dies some play actions..a few deep bombs and this team will be scary .. I’m hoping eubuka and McMillan both come back strong after the bye week.