“Built To Win Now”
February 7th, 2023
”Pipe down, Glazer. There are a lot of options here.”
It’s easy to sit outside the frenzy of Bucs fandom and view Tampa Bay as a team just a playcaller and a decent quarterback away from contending.
Look at the roster. Two Pro Bowlers and a borderline Pro Bowler are on the offensive line, plus two stud receivers are there during an offseason in which receivers are hard to find. The running back talent is solid and there are multiple Pro Bowlers on defense with a defensive-guru head coach.
That may not be a popular viewpoint in bars from Largo to Lakeland, but that mindset is out there.
Former Dolphins and Vikings general manager Rick Spielman was part of a long segment on CBS diving into the Bucs after Tom Brady’s retirement. He believes the Bucs “are built to win now” and should be players in the veteran quarterback market because of how the roster is constructed.
Spielman pointed to the talent and contracts. However, Joe easily could make a case that the Bucs’ window for contending for a Super Bowl is temporarily closed and a smart reset with a light housecleaning is the best move.
So what are they thinking at One Buc Palace? Joe is confident many scenarios are on the table. And, like Spielman said, it starts with who they can hire at offensive coordinator.
February 7th, 2023 at 9:22 pm
Dude must be in a Spring 2022 time warp…
February 7th, 2023 at 9:22 pm
Yeah…but it’s Rick Spielman…2nd only to Royal Tannenbaum in clownery. Tear it down…good players are pricey…most of them past their primes. The time is now to make the tough decisions ignoring sentimental feelings.
February 7th, 2023 at 9:27 pm
We need to trade Evans or Godwin for a 2023 or 2024 draft picks. Let Trask or a rookie QB start. I’ve said it over and over. We will not be a real contender with any available veteran QB. So just blow it up and start over.
February 7th, 2023 at 9:30 pm
To bad then that BAD COACHING can drag down a good roster down!
February 7th, 2023 at 9:35 pm
The worst place to be is in the middle of the pack exactly where the Bucs are. You have zero chance of even getting to the Super Bowl and you are to good to get high draft picks.
The Bucs are not built to win now. This is ridiculous. They need to start moving players who have high value and start drafting new young hungry players. They couldn’t even get over .500 with Brady so I can’t see them being top 3 in the NFC. That’s where you need to be.
February 7th, 2023 at 9:43 pm
“Built to win now”? That is exactly the kind of delusion that has resulted in two bad seasons in a row.
First of all, the coaching is BUILT TO LOSE. The roster without a good coaching regime is a loser. But even putting Bowles aside, this is a roster of overrated,overpriced, often injured veterans who have underperformed and mentally checked out with post-Super Bowl malaise. The impact veterans who held the team up, and largely responsible for the SB win, are gone. What else you got? Development rookies who are not ready, and JAGs. No one great, because Bucs didn’t draft instant impact and reached for lessers.
If One Buc thinks that all the team needs is to plug in a veteran QB and it’s another Super Bowl run, then get ready for another long, ugly result.
This team won’t be great until it purges itself of dead wood, gets rid of Bowles, and starts fresh, from zero.
February 7th, 2023 at 9:45 pm
Not that talented of a roster. Been saying it all season. Deciding who the core players are is step #1. Almost doesn’t matter who the new OC is. Of the players on the potential move on from list, my sacred cows are Mike Evans and LaVonte David. It may not work out that way, we cut ties with Lynch and Sapp. But it’s time for the rebuild. Let’s go.
February 7th, 2023 at 9:47 pm
“Joe easily could make a case that the Bucs’ window for contending for a Super Bowl is temporarily closed and a smart reset with a light housecleaning is the best move.”
Totally agree Joe
February 7th, 2023 at 10:00 pm
I have no doubt that the Bucs will be looking for a QB in the draft. They would be fools to wait and see if Trask develops or wait for a QB to drop in their lap.
February 7th, 2023 at 10:08 pm
Our defensive guru head coach needs to grow and mature into a real head coach. Todd bowels needs to hire someone else to run the defense, learn how to fix the offense, focus on critical clock management, and helping his coordinators make adjustments during games to win. Bill Belichick is arguably the best defensive coach of all time and he still hires defensive coordinators to run the defense. Todd Bowels needs to look himself in the mirror and honestly decide whether he wants to be a head coach or just a defensive coordinator
February 7th, 2023 at 10:11 pm
If Rick Spielman believes the Bucs “are built to win now” he must be smoking some extra high quality medical marijuana.
If we could keep all our good players and then strengthen the positions we need help in via the draft and free agency I would agree with him. But that’s impossible because of the situation with the salary cap and players like Jamel Dean wanting to get paid, understandably so.
If the front office and coaching staff did a great job it is possible they could create a good team in 2023. But good IS the enemy of great. They need to focus on creating a great team, and that is not going to be a one year project given the current circumstances.
February 7th, 2023 at 10:21 pm
If you had a top tier QB you could plop into the starting job, and you were willing to screw up the cap again in future years, you could certainly contend. The issue is that there aren’t top tier QB available. But if you can get Rodgers, or Lamar, sure, then go all in again. But lets be real, if you get someone, it’s a loser like Carr or worse, scrubs like Mayfield.
I’d much rather have Winston back than Carr or Mayfield or any of the other FA Qbs, since at least he’d be cheap, and you always have a gunslingers chance at success, at least when Ryan Smith and Chris Conte are starting for you on defense.
February 7th, 2023 at 10:22 pm
Bucs just went 8-10 with Tom Brady.
Brady is now gone and the Bucs are in Salary Cap jail with no OC or QB and a head coach that will never put a Championship team on the field.
Win Now? Really?
February 7th, 2023 at 10:24 pm
Wow, looking over that FA QB class, it’s really terrible. Bucs just need to Tank with Trask and clean up the cap — or go all in on trying to trade for Rodgers or even take whatever QB is left in the 1st. Just don’t give one of these scrub QBs a big contract that screws up future years, since none of them are any good. Mayfield might be the best option, and he was so bad that a QB needy Panthers cut him. That’s a very very bad sign.
February 7th, 2023 at 10:25 pm
Like Ira said a couple of days ago it’s time to start building for the long haul, not just for next season
February 7th, 2023 at 10:36 pm
Stop with this expectation to lose crap. That’s just a free pass for Bowles. He should be told to win now or else. And if he can coach, they will win. But we have seen he cannot. Don’t build an excuse to keep him.
All this “woe is me” crap about QB. The Ravens won a Super Bowl with Trent F’ing Dilfer!
February 7th, 2023 at 10:39 pm
If Jamel Dean walks and gets paid they will get a comp 3rd or 4th round pick, plus, you don’t have to tear it down, keep the core players, so a 1 year reset could be doable if a we figure out a qb by 2024
February 7th, 2023 at 11:06 pm
ModHairKen – how is it a free pass for Bowles? Part of the losing plan is for Bowles to get fired after this year.
February 7th, 2023 at 11:09 pm
Jvato24 – you only get comp picks if you don’t sign anyone. But probably with Dean it will be more like a 5th rounder, although maybe he gets a bigger long term deal and that moves up to a 3rd. But who knows, the NFL seems to make this stuff up on the fly.
Same with David, it’s possible he gets a good one-year deal with a SB contender and that could get the Bucs another 4th or 5th.
Also SMB could get a pick as well, more like a 6th or 7th.
But all that depends on the Bucs not signing anyone. Regardless I’m not making the choice to tank based on perhaps getting a 4th round pick in 2024.
February 7th, 2023 at 11:14 pm
Bucs have a coach who could undo the Steelers dynasty of the 1970s. If he had Chuck Knoll’s Steelers’ rosters of the 70s he would have kept earning top 5 draft picks instead of winning. What a shame. What a sham.
Built to win has no meaning under the Bowels of Toad.
February 7th, 2023 at 11:43 pm
I do believe that with the right moves, we can be out of cap issues within a year or two. And I think that it’s possible we can compete during that transition period as well…again, with the right moves.
Anything is possible.
They may dump some starters to clear up cap space…but there is always that outside shot that the replacements could be great players.
There is a chance that, whoever we end up with at QB, be it Trask or someone else, that player could play well enough to get us into the playoffs and even further possibly.
How much of a chance? Well…a lot of stars would have to align, I suppose.
February 7th, 2023 at 11:58 pm
I can see bringing in a journeyman QB and salvaging the offensive talent we do have. Likely to compete for a division title, which is a home game in the post season, but really a long shot to win it all. I am hesitant on starting from scratch, as moving on too soon from the talent we do have could put the franchise behind even further, and draft picking is really just an educated guess at best. Ultimately, like many other franchises, we are in limbo without that star calibur quarterback.
February 7th, 2023 at 11:59 pm
Random drug testing please…
We are NOT built to win now?
Flash poll…hell no.
Built to lose…from coaching to old slow players.
No QB. These articles are fiction. Fantasy.
February 8th, 2023 at 12:03 am
Goatfarmer Says
“Bucs have a coach who…”
So okay…I’ve been kind of hating on Bowles myself, so I am including myself when I ask…are we being fair to Bowles?
Bowles is such a low energy guy…I mean, he could put hyperactive children to sleep within 5 minutes during his pressers. No denying that…and we (including me) tend to believe that prevents him from being inspirational to the players themselves.
But…he certainly gets the defense working hard for the most part. I mean, yes…there were a few instances of individual players giving up on plays…deny it or not, but that happens in just about every game for every team. It’s more common than people admit.
And yet, for the most part, the defensive players work their tails off to the point of exhaustion and then give even more. They’re just not from Krypton.
But let’s think about the things that happened outside of the control of Bowles:
1. The offensive line injuries piled up. I mean, they had to use guys who would have been lucky to even get on the field at times. Key on this was the early loss of Jensen. Center was a huge weakness all year.
2. Leftwich. ’nuff said.
3. Injuries to defense started adding up as well, though Bowles somehow managed to get them to be competitive to a point.
4. Brady. The divorce. It had to affect the guy negatively. All Bowles could do is hope that Brady would overcome. He kind of did here and there. But things had to be happening in his personal life after the divorce too.
5. No matter how good Jason Licht is, he can’t create players out of nothing. Good players were already gone. All Jason could do is work with what he could find, and the pickings were slim.
I don’t know. We expected Bowles to win…but, man, part of me looks at everything that went wrong, and I don’t see how it could have been fixed. I mean…if Tom Brady could not get it done, how could we expect Bowles too?
So here we are, heading into 2023. Just about everyone here believes this season will be horrible. No chance of winning. Cap issues. No QB yet. No OC yet.
The fanbase has pretty much given up already for 2023…saying we should tank.
And yet…if that happens, Bowles is giving the fans what they want, right?
If he’s in a no win situation, how can we demand his job next year? Do we want him to accomplish the impossible?
My question is this though…what if he does? What if the cards are dealt and he somehow manages to go, say, 10-7 in 2023. What if a miracle happens?
Then what? Does he then deserve to keep his job?
February 8th, 2023 at 2:05 am
Bonz – I’ve already been down those roads you list. Consider: the last two playoff games he coached on defense (Rams cover no one, Cowboys cover your eyes), the fact that good teams shred his defenses, and even backup QBs shred his defenses. They don’t know their assignments, gaps, zone coverages. They don’t knowmhow to tackle. Do they even practice? If so, what? That is on the coach.
Leftwit was his fault. He could have demanded changes, and if they didn’t materialize, fired him then. He waited until it was too late.
The team will be worse talent wise, older and slower, and he’s going to lose some good ones. Forget about him developing any rookies, he’s even ruining Devin White. Whoever comes into this dung heap will suck.
I’m done with him. It’s past time for fairness. He’s earned the biggest dumpster to wallow in before he himself sets it on fire.
February 8th, 2023 at 4:04 am
‘Joe easily could make a case that the Bucs’ window for contending for a Super Bowl is temporarily closed and a smart reset with a light housecleaning is the best move.’
Agree with you Joe that the SB window is ‘temporarily closed’ for the Bucs, but a ‘LIGHT housecleaning’? Our salary CAP situation AND having 25 FAs hit the market kinda takes the wind out of that sail. By default, we’re in for a major rebuilding whether we like it or not. You can’t have HALF your roster hit the market & expect to field the same team next season.
Agree also with you that it all starts with the hiring of a quality OC. The alternative to that is to let Licht & Bowles determine who we need to keep & seek out in Free Agency … to include who the QB(s) will be … prior to hiring the guy who’ll have to use them. That’s bass-ackwards.
February 8th, 2023 at 4:29 am
Bonzai … Thanks for your midnight comment. Stayed with ya (and agreed with you) right up until the end, then had a couple of deviations. Not all Bucs’ fans are into the ‘tank camp’; far from it. Issue seems to be more that the situation looks bleak right now, and it’s hard to envision how the Bucs dig out from painting themselves in this corner.
A losing record is a distinct possibility IMO (I feel we COULD go anywhere from 10-7 to 2-14). It all depends on how we navigate these next couple of months (FA & draft). I can’t see us making even a dent in our salary CAP situation this year, because at MINUS $55.7 mil AND having 25 FAs we have no choice but to restructure a number of high $$$ contracts (and thus push them further down the road).
Over-The-CAP has a great article titled ‘Restructure Potential’. Looks at restructuring as ‘tool that teams have to create cap space in the current or upcoming league year is restructuring, the conversion of scheduled payments such as base salary or roster bonuses into signing bonuses that are prorated equally across the length of the contract, over a maximum of five years.’
It shows the Bucs at a current MINUS $58.2 mil, but being able to free up quite a bit using 1 of 2 options. In a ‘simple restructure’ Bucs would free up $77.6 mil & end up with $19.4 mil of CAP space (not all that much considering how many spaces we need to fill). But using their ‘maximum restructuring’ methodology, we could free up $105.8 mil & end up with $47.6 mil of CAP space. Gut feel is that we’ll end up being someplace in-between. The impact of freeing up CAP will be felt big-time IMO in 2024, 2025 & 2026. Long road of digging out ahead.
February 8th, 2023 at 6:16 am
We couldah been a contendah. But Noooo we are Mr Bill
February 8th, 2023 at 6:43 am
We back into the playoffs with a loosing record in the loosingest division of the NFL with a good veteran quarterback and descent core of players. The ownership failed to finish the job post season. period!
February 8th, 2023 at 7:35 am
Gibberish
February 8th, 2023 at 7:48 am
I. for one, do not buy the “defense is good” stuff.
The credible teams on the 2022 schedule had their way with this defense. The only time they shined was against the occasional bottom- dweller.
Injuries, sure. But every team has injuries, some worse than others. Great coaches scheme around injuries. Bowles does not, and he is clueless on the O side of the ball.
Bowles and his OC were a clownshow without Arians.
Seriously: why would any player want to come to Tampa? And why wouldn’t good players want to leave?
This team will never improve with Bowles in charge.
February 8th, 2023 at 7:50 am
This team went 8-10 last year it doesn’t look like a team built to win now.
February 8th, 2023 at 8:37 am
@ DR
We really only have 5-6 contracts to restructure… The Bucs will probably be able to free up the lower cap number you listed @ $70M.
There is no way we restructure Cam Brate, D. Smith, R. Jenson, S. Barrett, R. Gage…
We may want to restructure Evans, Godwin, Davis, Vea and White.
February 8th, 2023 at 9:06 am
Ready to win what? Speilmen needs to take his show to the Improv in NY. He’s a funny guy.
February 8th, 2023 at 9:47 am
The last thing we need is an overpriced used Carr , past his prime and on a downhill trajectory to add to our cap woes. We need to stick with what we got (Kyle Trask), and take him out for a test drive , before We even know what we got, remember Atlanta traded away Brett Farve after drafting him in the second round, then never giving him a chance to play ,( all of five passes), then trading him away to Greenbay where he was a multi year MVP , Super Bowl winner , and Hall of Famer, to do this We need to find an Offensive Coordinator , maybe a proven Quarterback Coach on the rise ,( see Philadelphia) , and go from there, the next to last thing we need is some overpriced long time OC offering yesterdays offense ( run, run, pass, punt, lose). What the hell have you got to lose otherwise?, (to coin a phrase)
February 8th, 2023 at 9:59 am
We need speed on offense
Offensive line help
A qb
Pass rushers and a linebacker
GO BUCS!!!
February 8th, 2023 at 10:28 am
Reality just isn’t that complicated. You are what your record says you are. Bucs were 8-10 with blowout losses to SF and Dallas and Panthers. Brady retires so take away his three 4q miracles we now have a 5-12 team before free agency cherry picks this roster. Sure the Bucs have options. They can choose to strategically begin rebuilding this year or be forced to rebuild later. The damage has been done. The only thing within Glazerlite’s control is how fast they act to fix it.
February 8th, 2023 at 11:51 am
There’s a lot of fat on the roster that needs trimming. And we need to get younger and more athletic in certain positions.
February 8th, 2023 at 1:21 pm
Marine Buc … ‘We may want to restructure Evans, Godwin, Davis, Vea and White.’
I agree on all 5 of those, but the amount that we ‘gain’ depends on how they restructure each contract (no way to guess at the total savings at this point IOW). That means keeping Devin White, which I’m for IF we don’t retain LVD (wouldn’t want TWO new ILBs at the same time). If we do re-sign LVD, it may be better for us to transition tag White (he’ll be asking $20 mil probably, his Market Value, but not sure I’d want to commit to that much for just 1 ILB … Transition Tag would cost $17.5 mil, but we could match his highest offer or get a comp pick if he signs with someone else).
February 8th, 2023 at 1:51 pm
Yes. Try to win every year and always draft quarterbacks.
February 8th, 2023 at 8:33 pm
Worst line in football
No pass rusher
David is past his prime
45 is a little better than average
Boys we have a 4 win roster
February 9th, 2023 at 12:23 am
Defense wins games. Just strengthen the Defense and plug in a few offensive players from free agency and draft.
Other option is trade off Godwin, David, and Evans like most of everyone has said. I personally don’t think that’s a the best idea tho. Maybe Godwin but David runs the Defense and Evans the offense. I’d keep both.
February 9th, 2023 at 8:17 am
Read Janik Eckardt’s recent article on Rick Spielman.