Why a loss to the Rams helps the Buccaneers more than a win
By Rob Leeds
As crazy as it sounds, the Buccaneers don’t need to beat the Rams to win today or keep their playoff chances alive. They just need to use today well.
We have enough of a sample size at this point to clearly see that the Buccaneers coaching staff is holding the team back.
You can argue that Bowles and Leftwich deserve more time and were just dealt a bad hand (inheriting a team that had Super Bowl potential from Day One and made every move in the offseason to improve the roster), but others have seen enough.
You don’t get to 3-5 with this team and get the benefit of the doubt, especially not while playing coward ball and using football schemes from the 1960s as a means of winning games.
This coaching staff needs to get fired if the team wants its luck to turn around and that absolutely has to start with Byron Leftwich.
Bowles isn’t it either, but it makes sense that the team will wait a little longer. Leftwich is a different story, and the fact that he is still with the team is insane.
Perhaps today will finally be the last time that we ever have to watch Leftwich waste this offense with first-down runs by the worst rushing offense in the NFL.
All it should take is a loss against the Rams.
The Bucs don’t need to win this game today. The playoffs aren’t decided here. This isn’t the end of the season or the time where Tampa has to be at its best. We haven’t even reached the bye yet. There is time.
A loss to the Rams today would help the team by putting a nail in the coffin for Leftwich, Bowles, or both.
This Bucs team should never be 3-6. It would force Bowles’ hand to make a change to turn things around and save his job, and failing to act would only hurt his job going forward too.
Firing Leftwich now, making it to the bye and to the end of the season with a new OC and a new-look offense that is based in this millennium, and competing at January seems like a good deal. Winning today and keeping Leftwich doesn’t seem like the way to accomplish that.
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