Peter King defends calling Buccaneers second-worst team in NFL

NFL expert Peter King defended his decision to absolutely bury the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as the second-worst team in his latest power rankings. 

While this hasn’t been the greatest offseason for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, things have gone a lot better than expected.

Not everyone is impressed, though, and the Bucs are getting a heavy dose of what life in the post-Brady era is going to be like from a national perspective. When Tom Brady retired, he took with him the massive spotlight that had been on the team for the last three seasons.

In his absence, the Bucs front office has managed to keep the train on the tracks with moves like re-signing Jamel Dean and Lavonte David while signing Baker Mayfield and Chase Edmonds. These moves came despite a $55 million salary cap knot that needed to be untangled and $35 million in dead cap space left behind by Brady.

There are zero expectations that the Buccaneers will be as good as they were with Brady next season, but it seems experts have done a complete 180 on the team.

Peter King, perhaps the most famous and well-respected NFL expert, is leading that charge.

King released his post-NFL Draft power rankings and placed the Buccaneers at No. 31, making them the second-worst team in the league in his opinion. Only the Arizona Cardinals are worse than Tampa Bay in his mind.

Needless to say, Bucs fans didn’t take kindly to this but King isn’t backing down.

Peter King defends ranking Buccaneers 31st in NFL Power Rankings

King recently spoke about his decision to rank the Buccaneers 31st overall in the league, and doubled down on why.

Specifically, King threw the Bucs offense under the bus as one of the reasons he thinks the team is the second-worst in the league right now.

“That defense better play better because the offense is going to struggle, I think, because I still don’t know what has been done for a team that might have had the worst running game in the NFL last year,” King said.

One thing that Bucs fans have rightly been doing in defense of the team is name-checking the talent on the roster. While it’s fair to assess the Bucs and see a grim future without Tom Brady — especially in the shadow of how poorly things went last season — the talent on paper alone should lift the team higher than 31st in the league.

To King’s credit, he admitted as much when pressed on defending his ranking.

“I think this team has a lot of holes and it would be one thing if the guys on that front-7 were coming off all great years, but I don’t think they are,” King said. “They certainly do have the resumes to throw out there on the field on opening day — to be better than they were at the end of last year. So they might be.”

Blink twice if you’re being forced to say something positive about the Bucs, Peter.

King might end up being right and the Bucs could turn out to be the second-worst team in the league. At this point, without seeing the team on the field but looking at the talent on paper, it’s hard to make that argument.