This season has been a roller coaster at times, but all is well in Tampa as the Buccaneers have made the playoffs after defeating the Detroit Lions.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are back in the playoffs. The Bucs have ended the drought. For the first time in over a decade, the NFL Playoffs will have the Buccaneers as a participant.
Is anyone truly surprised by this? The Bucs have been considered one of the top teams in the league for the majority of the year, but there have been letdowns at certain points.
Despite all of the stumbles and the bad losses, the Buccaneers have overcome the stigma of the franchise, and the waiting is finally over.
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There are many fans in the Tampa area that were young kids the last time the Bucs were in the playoffs. This writer was looking forward to their first year of middle school, but others have experienced this struggle for much longer.
Relevance is not something to take for granted, and the Bucs have earned every bit of this success.
Players like Lavonte David and Mike Evans deserve every bit of this. The franchise has been downright dysfunctional during their tenure, yet they have remained, and now they get to participate in one of the biggest successes for this team in a long time.
In addition to the Buccaneer veterans, new faces have proven themselves as well. Tom Brady has caught a lot of flak this season. He has shown major flashes of talent, but it is hard to follow a player as polarizing as Jameis Winston. Brady was searching for a way to prove his greatness with a new team, a new offense, and a new coach, and it is safe to say that Brady delivered.
Bruce Arians, for all his faults, has brought this team to the playoffs. It is entirely fitting that Arians and the rest of his staff coached their best game of the season in the game that clinched the playoff berth.
The Buccaneers have won ten games with one left to play, but the focus now is the playoffs. The Lions may have been understaffed, but everything finally clicked in this game, and this is the exact type of win needed to create a boost before the spotlight hits.
Everyone, get out there and celebrate. We’ve earned this.
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