The Buccaneers’ hopes for greatness are alive and well in 2017

4 of 4

Guess

Ok, you’re going to have to guess this one Buccaneers fans.

What if I told you, there was a Super Bowl winning team who lost twice to a division rival which didn’t even make the playoffs?

The first loss came on opening night, at home, and ended on a horrible special teams play capped off by a pick-six thrown by the punter.

After this, the next loss against this division rival came in primetime and featured a quarterback who threw an interception and lost a fumble. In fact, the entire team had a bad case of fumbleitis as they dropped it four times, losing two of them.

More from The Pewter Plank

In another loss during their championship season, the game started off with a deep pass and a quick score as their opponents took just six plays to take a 7-0 lead.

This was almost immediately followed up by a pick-six taken back, giving the visiting Pittsburgh Steelers a quick 14-0 lead. A lead they never took back, and ultimately lost the game 17-7. Oh, and the one touchdown was as garbage time as it gets.

Finally, the fourth loss in this teams run to the title, came in Philadelphia to Donovan McNabb and his overachieving 2002 squad.

This loss came in part because a quarterback, wait for it, tried to do more than he should have.

Ok, if you guessed it was the 2003 Super Bowl winning Tampa Bay Buccaneers, you were right! You should win prizes and such, but that’s not how this works.

Bottom line is this. The season isn’t over, just like it wasn’t over for any of the three teams who ended up winning it all despite some ugly, disappointing, or a combination of both kind of losses in their season.

This isn’t the whole list either, it’s just part of it.

I’m not saying the Buccaneers are going to win the Super Bowl in early 2018, but I’m not saying they aren’t going to either.

What I’m saying is, they’re 1-1 with a very bad loss under their belt, and a very good win.

There’s a history of teams coming back from bad losses to have very successful seasons.

I also get the fan trepidation. We’re talking about a franchise right now which hasn’t had a playoff birth since 2007, and has only three winning seasons since then.

But remember, one of those came just last year. This may not be like the 2002-2003 season, but maybe it’s like the 1999 season when a Buccaneers team with just one playoff berth in the previous ten seasons, and only two winning years in the same timeframe, went 11-5 and lost in the NFC Championship game to “The Greatest Show on Turf”.

Next: Grading the Bucs loss to Minnesota

That squad had a pretty lopsided loss too. 45-0 against the Oakland Raiders. The John Gruden led Oakland Raiders. Hey! Let’s trade for Del Rio!

All kidding aside, who knows how the rest of the season will turn out. All we know now is we’ve seen a defense which can dominate, and one which can be dominated. Especially when half it’s starting set is decimated by injuries.

We’ve seen the same out of the offense. Let’s all take a deep breath, and Aaron Rodgers this thing for now.

There’s plenty of time for panicking if this team enters Week 5 at 1-3 when they return to Arizona.

Ok, somehow I’m wrong on this and we should just throw in the towel to draft Sam Darnold in 2018. Let me have it.

Comment, find me on Facebook, Twitter, or email me at walkingtheplankpodcast@gmail.com to discuss this or anything Buccaneers related.

Home/Bucs News