The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are shaky right now. This team was supposed to be a bona fide Super Bowl contender, but the Bucs (3-3) look just like a regular NFL team that’s trying to balance out the highs and lows of a long season.
The offensive line is banged up, Tampa is too reliant on its defense and Tom Brady is actually starting to look like an aging quarterback at age 45 (to say nothing of the rumors swirling about his personal life). On Monday, Brady vowed on Instagram to turn the season around:
Football is hard.
We’re not playing like we are capable.
We’re in it together.
We’ll turn it around. #GoBucs
That’s good, because Tampa Bay’s problems stem from Brady’s offense.
The Buccaneers just lost to the Kenny Pickett- and Mitch Trubisky-led Pittsburgh Steelers, 20-18, on Sunday — the same Steelers that didn’t belong on the same field as the Buffalo Bills a week ago.
Looking at the entirety of the Buccaneers’ season makes the loss to the Steelers a little more understandable, but also a little more jarring. They almost allowed an Atlanta Falcons offense with no Kyle Pitts to come back from a 21-point, fourth-quarter deficit in Week 5. They scored only 12 points in their home loss to the Green Bay Packers in Week 3, and when the offense finally showed up against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 4, their defense was eviscerated by Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. Putting together a complete performance has been difficult for the Buccaneers this season and they don’t look nearly as formidable as they were the past two years.
“I think guys who are living off the Super Bowl are living in a fantasy land,” head coach Todd Bowles said after the loss to the Steelers. It’s unclear exactly who he was talking to with that line, but there’s one side of the Buccaneers’ team that has struggled to consistently hold up their end up the bargain this year, and it’s not the defense.
On Monday, Bowles defended the team’s handling of Brady, who missed the team’s walk-through Saturday to attend the wedding of his former boss, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.
“He works as hard as anybody,” Bowles said. “Special treatment, there’s been a few guys that have missed some meetings and some practices for some special things. That just doesn’t get publicized because they’re not him.”
Brady might not be that guy who can carry an offense on his shoulders anymore, and the running game certainly isn’t helping. According to Ben Baldwin of The Athletic, the Buccaneers are dead last in expected points added per rushing play (-0.269). What used to be an effective part of the offense has become an anchor.
Bowles has the defense still performing at a high level, but the offense under coordinator Byron Leftwich has come to a standstill. There’s no juice and explosive plays have been hard to find lately. Of course, injuries to Julio Jones and Chris Godwin haven’t helped — and neither did the one-game suspension for Mike Evans for his role in a brawl with the New Orleans Saints. Even with those caveats, the Buccaneers feel bogged down on offense. Godwin and Evans played over the past two weeks, when Tampa Bay struggled to consistently score against two of the worst defenses in the league in Atlanta and Pittsburgh. A Brady-led offense, of all things, is really struggling to generate points and consistent yards.
Center Ryan Jensen being out for the season certainly isn’t helping matters, while rookie left guard Luke Goedeke is getting used to the NFL (to put it lightly) and running back Leonard Fournette hasn’t been able to create plays by himself. Over the past five games, Fournette is averaging just 2.9 yards per carry and has scored one rushing touchdown in that timespan. The Bucs are running into brick walls and hoping they can find a crevice to squeeze through at the end.
Luckily for them, the NFC South isn’t the strongest division in the league, so they still own the inside track toward hosting a playoff game in January. The Falcons (3-3) have been scrappy, but they’re dealing with a roster that has been handicapped with almost $80 million in dead salary-cap money. The Saints (2-4) are extremely injured. The Carolina Panthers (1-5) belong in the SEC.
The division still belongs to the Buccaneers as far as this season goes, but their performance through six games makes it seem like changes are coming to this team after the season. Their current mode of operation isn’t a sustainable path toward winning.