Buccaneers’ embarrassing playoff drought continues
By Ryan Doyle
The Buccaneers have the second-longest playoff drought in the NFL. Despite a hot start to the 2018 campaign, Tampa Bay will miss the postseason for the 11th straight season.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Cleveland Browns are in a class of their own. Those are the only two franchises that have not made the postseason this decade.
Sunday’s 20-12 loss to the Baltimore Ravens officially eliminated the Bucs from playoff contention.
Before the start of the 2018 season, not many pundits saw the Bucs making any noise. They would quietly ride out the Jameis Winston suspension and sit at the cellar of a loaded NFC South division.
Instead, Tampa Bay would win their first two games as Ryan Fitzpatrick became one of the NFL’s biggest stories. Unfortunately, the magic quickly faded as the Bucs would lose seven of their next eight games.
In the midst of their losing streak, Tampa parted ways with defensive coordinator Mike Smith and Winston would lose his starting job. The Bucs were competitive, but a lackluster defense and a pair of turnover-prone quarterbacks proved that the hot start was, in fact, a fluke.
Head coach Dirk Koetter will finish his third season in Tampa Bay with another sub .500 record. With little to no improvement over last season, a changing of the guard could be in order.
After another failure of a season, Tampa Bay will likely make its fifth head coaching change in 10 years. The past decade saw a revolving door of play callers try and turn the franchise around.
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The Bucs tried their hand with head coaches with experience like Lovie Smith, to out of the box hires like Greg Schiano. However, nothing has worked.
At the start of the millennium, it looked as if the Bucs finally exercised their demons. They won a Super Bowl and had the entire city behind them.
Fast forward 15 years and the organization has no direction. Since Jon Gruden’s final season in 2008, the Bucs have finished over .500 just three times.
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The Buccaneers face a pivotal offseason. They are set to fire their head coach, find themselves with a cloudy situation with their quarterback and field one of the worst defenses in the league. The team needs a rapid turnaround to snap the decade-plus postseason drought in 2019.