It's certainly true that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers came out of their bye week on fire, just not the way anyone would have liked.
The Bucs were on fire in the sense that they were a flaming mess against the Patriots on Sunday. Despite a hot start to the game that saw the offense score with relative ease, the defense dug the team into a hole that it couldn't climb out of.
Todd Bowles' defense gave up three touchdowns on three plays of 50 yards or more, and flipped the script on themselves on the halftime turnaround. Tampa Bay went from being up 10-7 to down 21-10 in just three plays, which is the sort of whiplash that sent the afternoon spiraling out of control.
Todd Bowles calls out Buccaneers and takes blame after loss to Patriots
After the game Bowles didn't hold back, calling out everyone on the team from the players to the coaches. The quiet part out loud was that coaching -- specifically the decisions Bowles made -- were ultimately too much for the team to come back from.
To his credit, he owned that part of the loss.
"There were four [big plays] in obvious situations that we didn't make, obviously didn't play it well enough. Definitely didn't coach it well enough, and I definitely didn't coach it well enough, and that starts with me," Bowles said. "Those things can't happen if you're playing against a good team like that or any team in this league."
While he called out his players' effort, Bowles doubled down on making sure that coaches wore this loss as well.
"Inexcusable on our part. Bad on the coaching, bad on the players," Bowles said.
It's a message that doesn't ring hollow, especially given the rant that Baker Mayfield went on when he stepped up to the podium. His message preached accountability, which Bowles demonstrated by taking his share of the blame for what happened, but it doesn't address the problems that are slowly pushing the season off course.
Tampa Bay headed into its bye week with control of the No. 2 seed in the NFC and a shot at getting back to the top spot with a win. That didn't happen, and now it's back to square one in terms of hoping to avoid backing into the playoffs as the NFC South division winner.
Bowles has taken his fair share of heat for decisions he's made, and the choice to keep swaping out Jamel Dean for Benjamin Morrison is one he's rightfully getting cooked for. Dean is playing at a Pro Bowl level for the first time in years, while Morrison is a rookie who got cooked on one of those big touchdowns as well as getting hit with a costly DPI penalty.
It's stuff like that which added up to a death by a million cuts situation, and is what Bowles is likely referring to when he called himself out. While it's admirable, it's also one thing to take blame and another to actually learn from the mistakes.
We'll see if the Bucs do that with two very tough games against the Bills and Rams on the horizon.