Super Bowl week has officially arrived, with just two teams left standing in pursuit of a championship.
The Seattle Seahawks will be representing the NFC and the New England Patriots will be representing the AFC in Super Bowl LX.
While on paper, the results of Championship Weekend seem to have little to do with the Bucs, the Super Bowl matchup actually says a lot about Tampa Bay and provides some optimism and encouragement heading into the long offseason.
Buccaneers proved they can compete with the NFL’s best teams in 2025
Despite a disappointing 2025 season in which they finished 8-9 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2020, Tampa Bay remained a highly competitive team.
Of their eight wins on the season, they won four games against eventual playoff teams. One of those teams was the Seahawks. Tampa Bay and Seattle dueled it out in an instant classic, and the Bucs came away with a thrilling 38-35 victory over the Seahawks, handing them one of their only three losses of the season. Most notably, they did it on the road in Seattle, one of the league’s toughest places to play for visiting teams.
Tampa Bay also went toe-to-toe with the AFC champion Patriots. Though they ultimately fell 28-23, the Bucs kept the game close all the way to the end against an elite team that finished 14-3, showing they could hang with the league’s best.
There are no morale victories after an 8-9 season, but performances like these prove that Tampa Bay was better than its record indicated. After all, they started the season 6-2 before collapsing down the stretch, yet the talent and competitiveness were still there.
The results of the season remain disappointing, but the Bucs can head into the offseason encouraged, knowing they proved they have the pieces to compete with the NFL’s elite and could return as a Super Bowl-caliber team in 2026 with a strong free agency and draft class.