As the Tampa Bay Buccaneers prepare to play in the playoffs for a fifth straight season, the fourth as NFC South champs, it’s worth taking a step back to appreciate where we are. It wasn’t that long ago it felt like Bucs fans were at the foot of an unconquerable mountain, as rooting for the team felt absolutely devoid of any sort of hope for the future.
Old school Bucs fans have had it even worse, for as dark as the 2010s was some would argue what fans had to live through in the 1980s was even worse. The fact that this fan base has been through so much in what amounts to ot that long in the lifespan of a franchise says a lot about how much the current situation needs to be appreciated and enjoyed.
That doesn’t mean lowering standards of acceptability, as everything has risen with the tide of the team turning into a perennial playoff contender — but the mere fact we’re able to refer to the Bucs as that is pretty outstanding.
Before we get too deep in the weeds of Sunday night’s Wild Card game, let’s zoom out and let the breeze of good fortune wash over us all.
Buccaneers are on a historic run that we never thought would be possible
There has been a lot of negativity in certain pockets of the fans base this year that seems truly bizarre once you assess the landscape of what it’s been like to root for the Bucs for longer than Tom Brady’s arrival. Todd Bowles has specifically been a lightning rod for discourse which is the perfect embodiment for how lost the plot is when we sometimes focus too much on the trees and lose sight of the forest.
Bowles hasn’t been perfect, nor has anybody on the team, but it’s how well the team has adjusted that feels unlike anything we’ve seen before. How many times have the Bucs gone into halftime down a score or two and rolled over; heck, how many teams around the league have been prone to do that?
Since the bye week back in Week 12, the Buccaneers second half defense has been one of the best in the league. Despite bleeding points and yardage in the first half, specifically in bad second quarters, Tampa Bay allowed 3.7 points per half the rest of the season. As a result, the Bucs went 6-1 down the stretch and erased a three game deficit in the NFC South to overtake Atlanta and win a fourth straight division title.
That’s absolutely insane stuff, and it goes to show how well the Bucs can adjust on the fly even if it doesn’t feel like it in the moment.
It’s also what this all ultimately comes down to. Criticism is fair and necessary, but it should never come at the expense of enjoyment. Buccaneers fans have suffered enough, the calls don’t need to come from inside the house when it comes to trying to rain on the parade.
Baker Mayfield is having the best season of his career and is playing like an MVP candidate, even if he’s not getting proper credit for it. Becky Irving is one of the most exciting rookies in the league, the rushing attack we watched sink to the bottom of the NFL is now among one of the best, and the Buccaneers are in the middle of a historic run we never thought we’d see.
For all the talk about the team being average, Tampa Bay’s record in the playoffs over this five year run is 6-3, including a Super Bowl win over the dynastic Kansas City Chiefs. Not only is it subjectively amazing, but a footnote to those era of Bucs football is that they could end up being the only championship blemish on Patrick Mahomes’a record.
Go back in time and try telling a Bucs fan in the 2010s or the 80s that we’d be watching the team set a new franchise record for consecutive playoff apperances while tying the Saints for hte most division titles in NFC South history, all while having a franchise quarterback under the age of 30 who is igniting one of the highest-scoring offenses in the league. You’d be laughed of the room and told to get your head checked, but the impossible dream is now a reality.
Buccaneers fans have been subjected to bad football for most of the last five decades, and we deserve to enjoy how awesome all of this is.
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