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It’s the Buccaneers 50th season in the league! Miss Manners informs me that is the “Gold” anniversary, but instead the other NFC South teams clubbed together and are generously giving Tampa Bay the division by default. Again.
2024 PREDICTION: 9-8
2024 REALITY: 10-7; not good, but good enough for the NFC South title. Again.
Friends, sometimes happiness consists of knowing who you are and finding contentment and joy there. As a middle-aged white guy in Middle America with a large (but not as large as it was!) middle section, some dreams have had to be…re-evaluated. I am never going to space, but maybe I can learn to fly a small aircraft. I am not going to train up for a marathon, but I can probably do a 5k with my daughter when she’s old enough for Girls on the Run. I’m probably not going to spend four months per year in the Scottish Highlands, but I can get good scotch at reasonable prices.
And it seems the Buccaneers have settled into a comfortable, well-worn groove as well. Playoffs are great; no need to show off by getting to a SECOND round though.
They beat some good teams early last year (Lions, Philly), while tripping over their collective dicks against some real trash (Atlanta swept them).
Their run game was surprisingly good, with second-stringer Bucky Irving emerging from the shadows to break 1500 all-purpose (1100 yards on the ground, 400 receiving yards), while nominal starter Rachaad White chipped in another thousand (613 rushing, almost 400 receiving).
Baker Mayfield found new heights as Neü Baker, completing 71% of his passes (about 8% over his career average) for 41 touchdowns, versus 16 interceptions.
Which is good, because the team once again sucked Sweaty Tampa Stripper Ass against the pass. From last year’s preview:
They also did very little to help their secondary. Their sack and pressure stats were middle of the road, which suggests a coverage problem. So running it back with essentially the same secondary is certainly A Choice.
Such a burden, this gift of prophecy…
2025 Big Damn Changes:
Relatively few changes. Again.
They kept most of their roster, including the broken parts. They extended Chris Godwin for Significant Money, despite missing half of last year and about a third of this year with a gruesome ankle injury. They didn’t do much to address the Same. Glaring. Fucking. Need. in the secondary. They drafted another wide receiver in the first round, apparently leaning into the All Gas, No Brakes identity that has to be killing head coach Todd Bowles.
Biggest issue is that left tackle Tristen Wirfs is out until October/November. Baker took 40 sacks last year with an intact line. Turn away, children…
Offensive goober Liam Coen got a new job with cross-state fuckup Jacksonville, but not before dicking around Tampa in every way except the public nudity to which the city is accustomed. Hell, that very nearly made me sympathetic to the Creamsicle Cockbags- a near miracle. Fortunately, they had another Complete Fucking Weenie already cocked and loaded. Josh Grizzard, a 35 year old Yalie- who got his Masters in Christian Studies from Duke, in case you weren’t already retching- moves from passing game coordinator to offensive coordinator. He came up mostly in the Dolphins organization, although he interned for the Panthers, both bastions of positive organizational culture. He’s not technically from the Sean McVay coaching tree, but did spend two seasons under Kyle Shanahanan protege Mike McDaniel. So they replaced this goofy fuck:
with this goofy fuck:
They both look like they got jobs running major parts of America’s nuclear security apparatus because they hit Like on Elon’s tweet about a dog who gets stoned.
SCHEDULE CONSIDERATION:
It must be nice starting a year being spotted 4 wins.
The schedule otherwise looks medium to difficult. They play the NFC West and the AFC East, plus the Texans and Lions. The projected Hard Games are spread out across the schedule, so no real time to recover from major injuries. But the schedulemeisters also showed them considerable mercy- their short-week opponents are the Jets, the Saints and the Saints (again).
2025 PREDICTION: They should have the offensive firepower to win shootouts. A winning record is more than anyone in Don’t Say Gay Florida deserves, but I think the Greatest Show on TERF goes 9-7-1 and still wins the division. It’s like Fatboy Slim titled his greatest hits album: Why Try Harder?
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