The Tampa Bay Buccaneers look like a shell of the franchise they should be. Two time Super Bowl champions in this millennium, the Buccaneers actually began the 2025 NFL season as Super Bowl contenders and boasted one of the league's leading MVP candidates, with Baker Mayfield rising amongst a weak field with scintillating individual performances as the center piece of one of the league's most exciting offenses.
It did not take long for it all to unravel. The Buccaneers were outclassed by all the more valid Super Bowl contenders in both the AFC and NFC, and in a few short weeks, the New England Patriots, Buffalo Bills, and Los Angeles Rams all made mince meat out of the Bucs, with Mayfield getting outclassed in head to head competition by three other MVP candidates.
And even with stars like Bucky Irving, Chris Godwin, and Mike Evans returning from significant injuries, there has not been. a significant turn in results. If anything, the Buccaneers look even worse, falling to NFC South bottom feeders the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons, blowing a big lead to their Georgian rivals in front of the whole world on Thursday Night Football to move to an even .500.
The Bucs are far removed from Tom Brady
When watching the Buccaneers right now, it is hard to even correlate anything about this organization that is the same from the 2020 team under the guidance of Bruce Arians and Tom Brady that won the Super Bowl in Tampa Bay in a season stricken by COVID.
The Buccaneers at that time under Brady had the identity of an organization of high expectations and even higher performance. They were classy professionals who never had off games, rose to the highest standard when the occasion counted the most, showed accountability each and every week, and never took days or plays off. And they most certainly never made excuses.
But leave it to the career mediocre coach Todd Bowles - the only one who could have a pathetic losing season with Brady at the helm - to ruin it all. Under Bowles, the Bucs are the opposite of a high achieving and accountable organization. Their coach goes on inane, expletive filled press conference rants in which he throws players under the bus. He is a supposed defensive guru whose defense is the most ill disciplined, inconsistent, and pathetic unit in the league right now. It blows big third and fourth downs, even bigger leads, and leaves the offense with everything to do.
The Buccaneers players are openly taking plays off, bickering, dissenting an upset. There is no unity, only losing, and it all points to a serious organizational issue under Bowles and the rest of the powers that be in Tampa. The winning culture forged by Brady is crumbling, and it all points back to Bowles.