There’s good and bad to find everywhere, but breaking down what’s ugly about everyone else’s team is what keeps us feeling superior as fans. Good, Bad, and Ugly Rankings are here to remind you that your team is just as ugly as the rest of them. Next on our rankings, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
If there’s one team that’s been a model of consistency over the last few years, it’s been Tampa Bay. Since their Super Bowl victory in 2002, they’ve finished last in the NFC South 10 times. Let’s look at why this year will be the 11th.
The Good
New Head Coach Bruce Arians is here to solve all of your problems! Known as a bit of a quarterback whisperer, he’s now here to help Jameis Winston. Arians has made it clear that he believes in Winston, even if none of his teammates seem to. This will be a change from last year, where previous head coach Dirk Koetter let us all know how little faith he had in Winston. Winston has straddled the line between “waste of a first round pick” and “untapped potential” since coming into the league. If there’s a coach that can finally figure out what he’s able to bring to the team, it’s Bruce Arians.
Known as a wearer of hats, Arians led the Arizona Cardinals into a brief period of relevance during his time there. Prior to that, he was a coordinator for the Colts, Steelers, and the Browns. Arians served as interim head coach for the Colts in 2012, eventually winning AP Coach of the Year. That’s what got him the call from the Cardinals, and what he accomplished there is the reason the Bucs saw fit to draw him out of retirement.
Arians has the benefit of working with one of the most underrated receiving corps in the league, featuring the likes of Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, OJ Howard, and Cameron Brate. Peyton Barber COULD be a solid running back, but hasn’t had a big enough body of work to know for sure. Ryan Fitzpatrick proved last year that this team can get things done as long as the chemistry is there. It’s up to the new coaching staff to facilitate that chemistry.
The Bad
It turns out that even with great receivers, a team needs a competent defense to win games. That’s been a big problem for Tampa, often being in the bottom half of the league defensively. GM Jason Licht is clearly aware of this; almost every pick they made in this year’s draft was for the defensive side of the ball. That being said, they managed to waste a fifth round pick on a kicker which is wacky as hell when you remember they whiffed on Roberto Aguayo in 2016.
Ryan Fitzpatrick has taken the magic show to Miami, which is kind of a shame. He was so much fun to watch last year and is generally underrated as an NFL journeyman. It seemed like Fitzpatrick was the missing piece that got the offense to click, and his teammates obviously enjoyed having him under center. Management doesn’t think they’ve wasted enough time on Jameis Winston, even if the rest of us already know that they have. DeSean Jackson flew back north to Philadelphia and it sure seems like Winston being the starting QB was a part of the reason he wanted to leave. Gerald McCoy left and got picked up by division rival, the Carolina Panthers. Tampa then saw fit to replace him with Ndamukong Suh, who has almost identical career numbers as McCoy. Personally I feel like the fact that the Rams moved on from him indicates that he wasn’t worth having.
Looking ahead at the schedule, it doesn’t look promising. The NFC South is home to some of the best QBs in the league, and those QBs are often helped by stout defenses. Those teams are also coached by men that have led each of those teams to Super Bowls. Tampa has had a rough go of it for years while watching the Saints, Falcons, and Panthers all reach and maintain a high level of success. There aren’t a lot of games that look particularly winnable, and even though we’ve seen new coaches turn things around year one, I don’t know if that’s what’s going to happen here. Those brand new coaches are usually aided by brand new quarterbacks, or similar playmakers. Bruce Arians doesn’t really have that here.
The Ugly
Jameis Winston is ugly all over. Tampa Bay knew there were character concerns when they drafted him, and they took him anyway. Those “character concerns” include him having sexually assaulted a woman in college, stealing crab legs from a grocery store, and sexually assaulting another woman while already in the NFL. On top of that, he’s a whiny little piss-baby who has embarrassed his team repeatedly. I’m not going to pretend that I care, or ever cared about him stealing from a grocery store. It was a stupid move, but no one actually got hurt for it. But the NFL loves to pretend that it cares about violence against women. It loves to pretend that it cares about victims of sexual assault. The league has never done anything meaningful in the way of recourse. Tampa Bay shouldn’t even be in a place to give Winston another chance, because he should have already been barred from the league.
I enjoyed Bruce Arians in Arizona. I’ve considered myself a fan of his investment in his players as people, not just players. It has been appalling to hear him speak on Winston’s actions as if they’re in the same category as Tyrann Mathieu smoking weed in college, or someone parking in the wrong spot at the practice facility. It’s another in a long line of dismissals for the many victims of sexual assault in America. One in six women will be assaulted in their lifetime. I absolutely guarantee that if you asked any woman in your life if they’ve been assaulted, coerced, or harassed, they will say yes. Unfortunately, this is all too predictable at this point. There are a lot of people who will excuse it away, and attempt to justify his actions with his “growth as a person.” But Winston’s empty apologies and promises of change don’t take back what he did. Nothing will be able to change what those women have to live with. People move on and ignore these things because it would be inconvenient not to. When famous athletes commit atrocities such as these, it’s only temporarily in the public consciousness. For the victims, these things are permanent.
I hope he plays so poorly next year that he’s dropped from the league for good, since it seems that’s the only way he’ll lose his spot on the team. I guess you have to do something truly terrible like peacefully protesting injustice in America to get blacklisted.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are mediocre, and that’s all they’ve been for years. Last year they went 5-11. This year, they’ll go 4-12, with absolutely no chance to make the playoffs. Keep an eye out for the next installment in the GBU series!
