PR Roundtable: Can Bucs Turn It Around And Make The Playoffs?

A new Pewter Report Roundtable debuts every Tuesday during the Bucs’ regular season. Each week, the Pewter Reporters tackle another tough question. This week’s prompt: Can the Bucs turn things around and make the playoffs?

Scott Reynolds: No, And It Will Cost Todd Bowles His Job

I just want to put the word “no” in this space and call it a day. But you Pewter People deserve more than that.

There is just something off about this year’s Bucs team. It reminds me so much of Raheem Morris’ final season in Tampa Bay in 2011. The Bucs came off a promising 10-6 season in 2010 and started the next year 4-2 before losing 10 straight games in a total free-fall that led to Morris’ departure. The players loved Morris and played hard for him, but he didn’t hold them accountable enough to fix the team’s constant mistakes.

We’re seeing the same thing happen with year’s Todd Bowles team. They play hard. They like him. They don’t quit. But they aren’t held accountable enough to fix their mistakes and the losses continue to mount.

Despite the playoffs being well within reach, this team has to win at least five of the next six games to get to 9-8 and in position for the postseason, and where is the evidence that the Bucs can pull that off? Tampa Bay only won four out of the first 11 games, and has lost six of the last seven. Where is the momentum to suggest this can occur?

If – and it’s a big if – the Bucs somehow pull this off we’ll look back and say that the next two games on the schedule told the tale. Tampa Bay must have a convincing, feel-good win at home over Carolina on Sunday. Something like 30-10 where the Bucs can gain some confidence heading into Atlanta the next week.

Then they must beat the Falcons, who are a perfect 3-0 in the division so far. Without that win at Atlanta, the Bucs’ chances of winning the division are all but doomed. The Falcons would be in the driver’s seat with a 4-0 record in the NFC South, and the Bucs would likely finish third in the division.

Unless Tampa Bay finds a way to win the division again, which seems very unlikely, Bowles will probably be fired and a new head coach will take over in 2024.

Matt Matera: No, Bucs Won’t Make Proper Adjustments

I feel like we’ve been doing the same thing for a year and half now when it comes to the Bucs. They have made too many painstaking mistakes to believe in – or trust – them to win games when it matters most, so why should we believe they can take the division? Even against teams that Tampa Bay should beat, they don’t.

The biggest reason that the Bucs won’t win the division is because they fail to make the right adjustments in two separate phases. Todd Bowles either stubbornly won’t switch up his game plan after a particular defensive system isn’t working and is being exposed, or when it comes to player personnel, he takes much too long to put in a different player, or the better player for the situation.

For the first issue of it, how many times have we criticized Bowles and the Bucs for their defensive alignment? How often has the media and viewers pulled their hair out as we watch corners play 8-12 yards off the ball in fear of giving up the big play, only to allow easy short gain after easy short gain that still ends up in a first down for the opponent?

Gardner Minshew looked like he was slinging it back in his Washington State days again. Brock Purdy salivates at the thought of playing the Bucs because two of his best career games has come against them.

And part of why teams are able to call over 65 plays against Tampa Bay is because the Bucs have no idea how to consistently generate a consistent pass rush. Sure, sometimes Devin White or Antoine Winfield Jr. can get home on a blitz when it’s dialed up at the right time. But week in and week out the Bucs rely on interior defensive linemen Vita Vea and Calijah Kancey to take down the quarterback when it should be Shaq Barrett, Joe Tryon-Shoyinka and others on the edge that should be racking up the top sack numbers.

That’s where this intertwines with the latter half of Bowles’ adjustment issues – the personnel side. It took way too long for Bowles to identify that JTS just wasn’t getting the job done as a pass rusher. As good as YaYa Diaby has played of late, why couldn’t this happen three weeks earlier?

Then you look at Markees Watts, whose 11 snaps in Week 10 against the Titans impacted the Bucs greatly when his quarterback hit caused an interception. Where was he in Week 11 when Brock Purdy had a perfect passer rating? Well, he was on for a grand total of three defensive plays.

How about last game when outside of Vea and Kancey, the Bucs only registered one other quarterback hit? Watts couldn’t get a damn snap. Dare I even go into how everybody felt about Ryan Neal playing for too long? Finally, Bowles pushed the button to give more snaps to Dee Delaney, but again it happened later than when it should’ve been done.

We can spend another entire article about the Bucs’ offense and its inefficiencies, but I’ll ask this – are we to believe that Bowles would have willingly subbed out Matt Feiler for Aaron Stinnie at left guard if not for injury? I think not. The offense has done better when Stinnie’s been in, but that adjustment probably doesn’t even come yet if Feiler didn’t miss a couple of games.

Todd Bowles just takes too long to make changes on multiple levels for this team. It’s going to cost the Bucs a playoff spot and the chance to win another division title.

Bailey Adams: Bucs Just Don’t Seem To Have A Run In Them

The Bucs are obviously within range of the NFC South title – at least mathematically. They’re only one game back of the lead with six games remaining, and four of those games come against divisional opponents. That includes head-to-head matchups with the Falcons and Saints, the two teams ahead of them in the standings.

The division is there for the taking, but it will require a late-season run of consistency and some big wins against teams on similar footing as them. And I just don’t believe this team has it in them.

What has this group shown over the course of this season to make it worth believing in the possibility of a late-season charge toward the division title? The Bucs haven’t won back-to-back games since Weeks 1 and 2 and they’ve lost six of their last seven games. It seems pretty clear that they’re closer to the team that has lost six of seven than the team that started 3-1.

Tampa Bay just makes too many mistakes and is too inconsistent to string wins together. A win over the 1-10 Panthers isn’t even a sure thing anymore. But even if that happens this week, does it really seem like this team is going to go out and beat the Falcons in Atlanta next week? Say the Bucs do win both of those games and get to 6-7, I’m still not believing in them enough to go up and beat the Packers at Lambeau Field the following week. They’ve gotten too far below .500 and won’t be able to handle the game of catch-up the way they need to down the stretch.

In reality, this team has to win at least four of its final six games to have a shot. That might not even do it, meaning Tampa Bay would have to go 5-1. Neither of those finishes seem to be in the cards, which is a shame because the Falcons and Saints aren’t good teams. It’s just that the Bucs are proving to be worse. And because of that, a new head coach and a fresh start will be in the cards this offseason.

Josh Queipo: No, Nope, Nada, Zilch, None

You would think the team with the best quarterback play, the best receiver duo, and a defense that is largely intact from a Super Bowl run not too long ago would be able to separate themselves from a moribund division filled with wannabes and has-been franchises. But nope. Not the Bucs.

Despite getting the high-end of potential outcomes from free-agent bargain Baker Mayfield, surprisingly good play from an offensive line that features four players in different spots from the year prior, and play that is as good as one could expect from their first-round draft pick, the Bucs continue to shoot themselves in the foot week-after-week. They have been in almost every game they have played this year.

Hell, they even hung with the 49ers for large swaths of that game. But continual mismanagement of the game and the clock has left me with absolutely zero faith this coaching staff can properly elevate a competitive (in the NFC South) roster to the four-to-five wins needed in the next six games to win this division.

Whether it is the fear-based decision-making that prevents Todd Bowles and Co. from wanting to score more points because of minimal risk involved, the backwards thinking surrounding timeout usage and clock-management or the overall adherence to antiquated ways of approaching the game, the proof is in the pudding of not just the losses that have piled up over the past 15 months, but how those losses have piled up.

I see no change in the imminent future for this franchise. Therefore I have no confidence they will be able to pull off the run needed to win this sorry excuse for a division.

Adam Slivon: They Still Can – But I Don’t See It Happening

Now if you would have asked me before Sunday’s game against the Colts, I still would have said yes, the Bucs can still make the playoffs and perhaps win the division. No one expected them to win against the 49ers, and they put up a solid effort in a 20-6 win over the Titans. But after their most recent loss – their sixth in the past seven games – it looks unlikely that they will turn it around and win the NFC South.

For the Bucs to have a turnaround and prove themselves as a team that can compete, Tampa Bay really needed to beat an Indianapolis team rolling with a backup quarterback. The snowball really started forming against the Falcons, and whether Todd Bowles admits it or not, it has built up to the point that I am doubtful they can bounce back.

I maintain the belief that on paper, the Bucs still have the best roster in the division. There is plenty of star power on both sides of the football, but when it comes to the coaching and the execution, that’s where the results haven’t backed it up. As was the case last year, every game outside of the Saints in Week 4 was one that did not convincingly show up and play quality football for four quarters. With that, I don’t see them being able to finish 5-1 to be 9-8. Heck, repeating their 2022 record of 8-9 will be a challenge.

At this point, it’s hard to pick Tampa Bay as a favorite with confidence in any remaining game, including against the 1-10 Panthers who recently fired their head coach and have a bleak future. Further games next month against the Packers at Lambeau and the Jaguars are two more matchups that they need to show up and prove they are more than a team currently sitting at No. 7 in the draft order.

That’s not to say they cannot claim the division. If the players want it bad enough and can play disciplined football and capitalize on their in-game opportunities, they have the ability to pull it off. I just don’t see that potential being realized.