Just 40 days ago the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were two games under .500 and on the outside of the playoff picture looking in. With just a week left in the season, the Bucs are a win away from clinching a fourth straight NFC South title and a Rams loss away from securing the No. 3 seed.
Everything is lining up perfectly, although there are still some choppy waters ahead.
Tampa Bay has been eaten alive by the injury bug this season, with every single key player missing some amount of time. Baker Mayfield and Bucky Irving have needed to be pulled from games due to injury — although they both returned — while guys like Mike Evans, Tristan Wirfs, and Calijah Kancey have missed weeks at a time. Chris Godwin is out for the season and SirVocea Dennis has been on IR for most of the year.
Despite all of this, the Bucs are in a position to finish better than they did last season but will need to pull off a miracle finish to the season without a few key players.
Buccaneers defense will be without two starters against Saints on Sunday
The Bucs announced on Friday that Antoine Winfield Jr., who hasn’t played since the win over Las Vegas, will miss his fourth straight game on Sunday. Jamel Dean has also been ruled out, which means the Bucs will be down two defensive starters for a must-win game.
Some good news is that Cade Otton is a game time decision, which doesn’t mean much since he carried that designation a few weeks ago before Tampa Bay’s game against the Cowboys, but there’s at least a chance he plays. Of course the best news is that despite all of these injuries to key players, the Bucs aren’t going up against a good team on Sunday, nor are they even getting a decent version of the Saints.
New Orleans has already ruled Derek Carr out, which means Spencer Rattler is going to start in his place. Bucs fans nervous about a rookie quarterback squaring off against a depleted defense with the division title on the line need look no further than what happened in the second half of the first meeting between the two teams.
Sure, Rattler torched the Bucs in the second quarter but fell into a dark, lifeless pit in the second half of a game the Saints’ offense scored zero points.
If Tampa Bay somehow loses on Sunday, then they’ll have done more than blown a golden opportunity to win the division. A loss would prove they don’t belong, but everything we’ve seen since the bye week suggests this is a dangerous team that others in the NFC won’t be happy to see later in January.
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