No one was happy with the Buccaneers performance last night, especially not Warren Sapp.
The first great teams that many Buccaneers fans saw as they fell in love with the team were based on defense. Most of Tampa’s legends played on the defensive side of the ball. Mike Evans is already the best offensive player in franchise history despite a short tenure compared to some of his counterparts, which should show how skewed the team was towards one side of the ball.
Once the 2010s hit and the majority of the first Super Bowl team left the league, the identity for the Bucs also started to shift. Gone were the days of a killer defense and an offense that ate the clock, and the era of the offensive-heavy attack began.
The 2010s were defined by offensive prowess and terrible defenses. The offense wasn’t always the best, but the shift was beginning. Jameis Winston and Tom Brady completed the overall shift to an offense-first team.
With Brady at the helm, the Buccaneer offense has become one of the most potent in the NFL, but the defense hasn’t always met the same standard. The defense showed up en route to the Super Bowl, but there were still some question marks on that side of the ball last season and this year.
Injuries haven’t made matters much better, but the defense in Tampa falls very short of the lofty heights the late 90s and early 2000s teams met. The Bucs losing to a backup quarterback in New Orleans only highlights the issue even more.
Last night’s loss still stings. The Buccaneers lost a decent chunk of their momentum going into the bye week and their lead in the NFC South. One would think that the defense would’ve stepped it up against Trevor Siemian, but he actually took the reins from Jameis Winston without skipping much of a beat.
The Bucs lost the game on the backs of lousy offensive and defensive performances, and Warren Sapp correctly criticized the defense on Twitter. That unit should’ve had their way with Siemian, yet they still struggled.
The days of Tampa’s D sealing up games is OVER!! Trevor Siemian??
— Warren Sapp (@WarrenSapp) October 31, 2021
There are still the injuries to explain some of the shortcomings, but the performance overall was very disappointing.
This team can be great, but letting bad quarterbacks have their way against this defense could be the bane of this team’s playoff hopes. The defense has to step it up going forward if they want to make it back to a third Super Bowl, and that success will be much easier to achieve when all of the players get back from injury.
Sapp may have been a little critical, as this unit does still have the potential to take control of games, but the Bucs have plenty of proving to do down the stretch.
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