Fan to Fan

I’m not just a sports writer who happened to catch on with a Buccaneers website. On January 6, 1980, a 14-year-old me sat on the 50-yard line of the Old Sombrero (home side). I was captivated. It didn’t take long for that excitement to turn into great disappointment. The Bucs fell in a shutout, 9-0, that day.

I’ve been a Bucs fan for over 45 years. I’ve seen the best and the worst this team has had to offer. I’m not a sugarcoater or a bullshitter.

Expect the Worst…

So, when I tell you that I was, for the most part, expecting this Cleveland loss, you can believe it. My mother taught me when I was growing up to “expect the worst, but hope for the best.” That lesson has served me well in my relationship with this team over the many years I’ve pledged my allegiance to them.

Counting back to the second half of last season, the Buccaneers are 2-9. In two weeks’ time, they are likely to be sitting at 2-11 over their last 13 games after the Vikings and Packers come to town in consecutive weeks.

Like the head coach or not, you have to know that this is his team, and this is the product he delivers. He won division titles because the competition was awful, with records of 8-9 (a losing record) in 2022, 9-8 in 2023, and 10-7 in 2024.

This is what you get with Todd Bowles as your head coach. He’s not a rah-rah motivator, nor does he inspire greatness in his players as Dungy once did. He’s not a culture-setting guy, or any kind of player or position whisperer. He shows little to no emotion on the sideline. He hasn’t, for the most part, been a good judge of talent in the draft. He also hasn’t been a very good defensive coordinator.

So why is it that he still has a job in Tampa? Because the owners really like him? It seems as if this is the answer I hear more often than not.

Fixing It Means It Wasn’t Broken at Some Point, Doesn’t It?

The rest of the schedule is an uphill battle from here. Bowles says they have to get this fixed, and fast. This is still the same broken-down team we watched last season blow a 6-2 start.

Honestly, at this point, we should all be encouraged that we have the Falcons twice on the schedule because those are the only two wins I see in this season’s future.

We all could, at one time, have had some faith in the offense to keep us in games and lead the way. I don’t see anything in any aspect of this team that should warrant hope. Bowles has never demonstrated any knack for rallying the troops or for getting “things fixed,” as he puts it.

Unfortunately, ownership could not see the forest for the trees. So we must all suffer through what we’re slopping around in at the moment: a wasted season, waiting for a coaching change to occur.

Hopefully, they can wind up with a nice draft spot in ’27.