Nothing about what happened to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night in Detroit was good. Baker Mayfield looked like a shell of the player we've seen rise to MVP-levels this season, the offense did absolutely nothing, and Mike Evans suffered a season-ending injury.
It's a game worth forgetting other than what can be learned and never repeated. The Bucs laying that sort of dud isn't ever good but it's better to have done it now than when it could have been potentially fatal later on the year.
That brings us to the old mantra of on to the next week, which in this case bodes pretty well for Tampa Bay having a much better time than it did six days ago.
We're not talking about the week itself, but rather Tampa Bay's history against New Orleans over recent seasons. Specifically, the context of this year's matchup with the Saints mirrors what we saw when the two teams met last October.
Buccaneers have history on their side after nasty loss to Lions
Last year, Tampa Bay headed to New Orleans while reeling from a gnarly primetime loss, that time a Thursday night game on the road against the Falcons. This time around, the Bucs are in New Orleans on the heels of a primetime loss on the road against the Lions.
The response last year was a 51-27 bulldozing of the Saints, which the table is set for again.
Tampa Bay needs to wash the bitter taste of the 24-9 loss out of its mouth; that much is obvious. Over the last two seasons, the Bucs have slipped into a midseason coma, nearly missing the playoffs and ending their streak of NFC South titles. Atlanta is better than expected and the Bucs can't allow the Falcons to get too far back into the mix at a historically turbulent time for the team.
What better way to do that than with a game in New Orleans, much like we saw the team do last year? Tampa Bay didn't forget its loss to the Falcons by demolishing the Saints, but it did shake off the grossness of it in order not to lose sight of how good the team can be.
The team still hit a wall a few weeks later and tumbled into its midseason slump -- going 0-4 over the next four games -- but there were other circumstances that contributed to that. Chris Godwin suffered a season-ending injury, Mike Evans missed two and a half of those games, and all of them were against teams with winning records near the top of the league.
It doesn't feel great that another stretch like that looms on the horizon, but just like then the circumstances are different now. Tampa Bay heads into its bye week after this Sunday before getting games against the Patriots, Bills, and Rams. That sounds daunting but this season has been defined by the Bucs subverting expectations.
Going into the bye week off of a win is critical, and there's nothing to suggest we won't see the Bucs learn from last year's slump and bounce back in a similarly difficult stretch. We won't truly know until we get there, but there isn't a better way to get the vibes right than to head into the bye week after teeing off on the Saints.