Although the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won in Week 13 of the 2025 NFL season against the Arizona Cardinals, you won't hear a celebratory peep from a single Buccaneers fan. Maybe you will hear a sigh of relief or the sound of someone crumping up the paper bag they were breathing into, but after surviving 20-17 against one of the worst teams in the league, there is no real need for jubilation.
With most of the Week 13 games in the books, the NFC Playoff Picture has been updated, and while the Buccaneers are still in the playoffs as things stand right now, their spot in the race has actually become pretty tenuous.
The Buccaneers are fourth, worst out of all the current divisional winners. And therein lies the other issue. Right now, the Bucs are not guaranteed to win the division. Quietly, the Carolina Panthers are playing really good football with resurgent young quarterback Bryce Young at the helm, and they just outgunned Matthew Stafford and the Los Angeles Rams this Sunday. You know, the same Rams that completely annihilated the Buccaneers 34-7 in front of the whole wide world last week on Sunday Night Football.
Todd Bowles is the definition of average
At 7-5, the Bucs are closer to average than truly good. At 7-6, the Panthers are hot on their heels. There are literally three Wild Card teams with better records than the Bucs, and then the Detroit Lions at 7-5 would miss the playoffs with the same record.
When you look at the NFC Playoff Picture, it really drives the point home that Bucs head coach Todd Bowles, who has never had a great record as a regular season head coach, is behind his peers. The Chicago Bears have a fraction of the talent the Bucs do with a far worse quarterback, and yet they are the top seed in the NFC and just beat the Philadelphia Eagles on Black Friday to stamp home a 9-3 record. Again, the same Eagles that beat the Bucs already this year.
The Buccaneers literally lost to both the Rams and Eagles, the other two teams in the division lead who are ahead of them. For all the talk earlier in the season about Super Bowl, the Bucs are proving that they are closer to the mediocre teams outside the playoff picture than the teams at the top. A lot of that goes back to Bowles, who was badly outclassed by Sean McVay and the other top coaches in the NFL in head to head competition. He really is the ceiling capping this team.