SI.com: Bucs Will Be In Caleb Williams Sweepstakes
August 25th, 2023
Brutal prediction.
If this plays out, Joe is confident the Bucs will have a rookie quarterback and a new and possible rookie head coach in 2024.
Conor Orr of SI.com decided to pick the winner of each and every NFL game this fall. So naturally, he has the final record of every team in the league.
It’s going to be a brutal year with a silver lining for Bucs fans, per Orr. It will be a step back to the Lost Decade when fans monitored the NFL draft by Halloween.
Per Orr, the Bucs will finish with a disgusting 2-15 record. It will only be surpassed by the Cardinals, which Orr thinks will win one game.
Unless Arizona decides to give up on quarterback Kyler Murray, who is recovering from knee surgery, quarterback Caleb Williams (#CollapseForCaleb) would be be there for the Bucs in this scenario. Drake Maye certainly should.
Orr believes the Bucs will lose, and lose a lot, because — you guessed it — Baker Mayfield (and competing Kyle Trask). Orr typed that he cannot envision a way Mayfield or Trask can lead the Bucs to a winning season.
The Buccaneers are going to be overmatched this year, it seems. I don’t know how Baker Mayfield and Kyle Trask will pilot a team through some rough pockets of games, including Weeks 11 to 16, where they face two legitimate Super Bowl contenders, along with some burgeoning teams that should be rounding into form by then.
Just two wins to Joe is absolutely shocking. If the defense is as good as Joe thinks it can be, just by accident the Bucs ought to win four games.
For example, the 2014 Bucs with their 2-14 record won the Chase for Jameis after their defense ranked No. 11 in points allowed and No. 24 in total yards allowed. This year’s defense is significantly better than that one. Or at least should be, barring injuries.
So believing the Bucs will lose 15 games, that means Mayfield/Trask will have to be worse than Stewart McClown/Mike Glennon. That would mean Mayfield/Trask would have to be horrifically rotten, as in purely unwatchable for anyone with a soul.
Man, Joe is almost shocked how much people (outside of Florida) shat on Mayfield. It’s like the guy never made the playoffs much less won a playoff game.
August 25th, 2023 at 12:17 pm
Absolutely. At best I see 5 wins. If needed, expect an all-in trade up
August 25th, 2023 at 12:18 pm
Won’t happen, Bucs are going to the SB. Both Baker and Todd will be MVPs. Go Bucs!
August 25th, 2023 at 12:19 pm
Who the heck is Conor Orr? He was probably in diapers the last time the Bucs picked first. God love ya Jose but I wish you would stop elevating these nobody, know-nothing writers to prominence just because they mention the Bucs.
August 25th, 2023 at 12:22 pm
Hopefully #JustTank
August 25th, 2023 at 12:24 pm
Only difference between a dual threat QB and a Pocket QB is the willingness to run. Been a lot of QB’s in history that were Traditional Pocket Passer’s that took off and ran.
There was one that would run for sixty yards and never cross the line of scrimmage. Although back in that era Fran Tarkington was concerned that his head may be removed.
I doubt that the Bucs will spend the kind of money needed for a high draft QB when it will be more useful for other needs.
August 25th, 2023 at 12:24 pm
Joe, why do you keep bringing us these “experts” without the context of their past predictions? I looked, and Conor Orr is a hack. He predicted the 2022 Bucs would win the NFC South with a 12-5 record. Look it up. I’d be more interested in the opinion of the Krispy Kreme counter clerk.
August 25th, 2023 at 12:35 pm
What a freaking insult! It sure didn’t take long for the Bucs to be the NFL whipping boys again. No way they only win 2 games. If this team isn’t fired up due to the overwhelming lack of respect, they are dead inside.
August 25th, 2023 at 12:38 pm
The first two games will be very telling… If the Bucs lose to both the Vikings and Bears before playing the Eagles and Saints there is a good chance the Bucs will be 0-4 before the week 5 bye.
Then I can see the Bucs only winning 3-4 games.
August 25th, 2023 at 12:50 pm
D@mn you frozenbuc, now I’m craving Krispy Kreme.
August 25th, 2023 at 12:58 pm
.
August 25th, 2023 at 1:20 pm
I really want Caleb but just don’t see it. We will be average but not bad enough to have the #1 overall pick. I think our record will be somewhere around 7-10
August 25th, 2023 at 1:22 pm
I see 9-8… that feels too optimistic for a Bowles-led team but it is a weak division, and 4 games against rookie QB’s.
August 25th, 2023 at 1:25 pm
It is absolutely insane that people keep counting out this Bucs team. The problem last year was BORON LEFTWICH. We have discussed ad nauseam all the ways in which he was terrible, and everything I have seen and heard from Dave Canales is that he actually understands strategy and brings excitement. Now let’s look at Baker: he had a great rookie season, an average 2nd season, but then brought the BROWNS to the playoffs! The BROWNS! The following season he played through a bad injury, which was a huge mistake because he looked awful. That led to him being ousted to a bad Panthers team where he had no chance… and now we are here. He is on a much better Bucs team now. The only thing that could go wrong is this offensive line. It will be up to Canales to adjust and figure out how to manage with potentially weak links on the line. Seattle seemed to have it figured out, it is not like they had the best offensive linemen, but they still got by pretty well. LFG
August 25th, 2023 at 1:28 pm
Bowles and Mayfield. Proven losers.
August 25th, 2023 at 1:31 pm
The Stinking Stainks will beat the Falcons for the division.
August 25th, 2023 at 1:32 pm
There you go. At times, Joe thought Leftwich believed calling plays was nothing more than playing a video game. Zero rhyme or reason. Zero strategy. Zero concept of exploiting mismatches. Absolutely no clue how to build a gameplan.
August 25th, 2023 at 1:34 pm
It’s going to be so much fun watching these piggyback parrots flip their stances on the Bucs. With a stout D & rejuvenated offense, the Bucs will surprise many.
August 25th, 2023 at 1:34 pm
I love preseason prognostication. We get to look back in January and see how many idiots there are in sportswriting. And there are LOADS.
August 25th, 2023 at 1:37 pm
weeks 11-16 have 2 super bowl contenders? i guess he is talking about the niners (duh) and green bay???
August 25th, 2023 at 1:43 pm
Don’t root for Bucs failure… you realize that doing that means an entire year of unwatchable Bucs football, followed by at least another year of aggravating rookie starter football.
I’m not really excited to wait 700 more days to watch the Bucs play something worth seeing. They don’t send me a check if they win the Super Bowl. I want to be entertained, now.
It’s not like the #1 or #2 overall pick is a guaranteed ticket to the quarterback garden of Eden… from 2015 to 2019: Jameis Winston, Jared Goff, Mitch Trubisky, Baker Mayfield, Kyler Murray.
Do you really want to wait until 2025 to watch someone like Mitch Trubisky? You actually HAVE a #1 overall pick on the roster right now. It’s no guarantee of milk and honey.
August 25th, 2023 at 1:53 pm
People forget Mayfield’s Sooners had a 31-14 lead over Georgia in Rose Bowl before Chubb and Michel ran for like 150 yards on 3 carries and eventually won in OT.
August 25th, 2023 at 1:56 pm
As a Bucs coach told Joe a couple of years ago about Kyle Trask, “After you’ve been in the NFL for a year, what you did in college doesn’t mean jack sh!t.”
August 25th, 2023 at 2:35 pm
4 wins.
August 25th, 2023 at 2:41 pm
“Making predictions is tough, especially about the future” …. Yogi Berra
August 25th, 2023 at 2:58 pm
Not sold on Caleb. He got a lot of help from his great receivers and playing in the weak Pac 12. Lost twice to the best team in conference — Utah
August 25th, 2023 at 3:03 pm
If you could ever get the inside story of how that last season in Cleveland went after he continued playing and throwing a ridiculous amount with his arm all wrapped up with a sling?
August 25th, 2023 at 3:39 pm
I LOVE it when the world hates on my team.
I LOVE being underdogs.
August 25th, 2023 at 3:50 pm
Caleb Williams… come on down!
August 25th, 2023 at 4:15 pm
There are a lot of good QB prospects in the 2024 draft not just Caleb. You could get a good in the late first round or early second. If this team starts as bad as SI portrays them might as well play Trask to see if hes a keeper.
August 25th, 2023 at 4:29 pm
It seems, by looking at his chart, that he doesn’t know anything about this division… at all.
August 25th, 2023 at 4:44 pm
The Bucs never lose at home to Chicago – so if that was to happen Bowles should be fired just for that.
But should beat Chicago, I think they’ll actually beat the Eagles as well. Bad Bucs teams always beat some really good team each year and I think the Eagles will be it. People will think the Bucs might good, since they’d be 2-1, then, like a Ray Perkins team that would start out hot each year, they’ll lose 7 in a row on the way to a 5-12 season.
August 25th, 2023 at 4:45 pm
bucsfan951 Says:
August 25th, 2023 at 1:37 pm
weeks 11-16 have 2 super bowl contenders?
———-
I’m going to guess he meant weeks 8-11, which would be Buffalo and SF.
August 25th, 2023 at 5:12 pm
There’s definitely quite a few question marks heading into this season. I’m predicting the defense plays really well. Until the secondary takes turns getting hurt starting around week four. Right about when the defense starts struggling. The offense will get it together. We win 6 or 7 games. The team as a whole will probably play two complete games the whole year. I say this because this offense will take a few games to figure out what works. What doesn’t work and why. While the offense is figuring things out at the beginning of the year. The defense will be healthy and hungry. They might win a few games early because of this defense. If the defense can’t stay healthy this team is sunk for this year. Honestly the secondary always seems decimated with injuries by week four. Bucs probably aren’t going to be a consistently high scoring offense. We aren’t going to be winning any back and forth offensive shootouts.
August 25th, 2023 at 5:13 pm
I quit reading SI many years ago. I quit reading BSPN many years ago. I quit reading Scientific American many years ago too. All for the same reason: they became so gangrenous with their own egotism, ignorance and naked hypocrisy I couldn’t stand them anymore. I only hope the Bucs are saving all this insipid tripe and posting it to their bulletin board and spit it back in their faces. No offence to you, of coarse; your just reporting.
August 25th, 2023 at 5:28 pm
I will never forgive Leftwich for last year. Using Mike Evans as a decoy on fly routes. Everyone knew this team was doing all it could to get the ball out fast as possible. Yet Leftwich had Evans streaking down the sidelines. Leftwhich kept calling these long developing plays. So Brady’s would just dump to his outlet.
August 25th, 2023 at 5:32 pm
Caleb is not coming out.
August 25th, 2023 at 5:33 pm
ESPN has a front page story up on Trey Lance, saying the Bucs should trade for him. I completely agree, assuming you’re not paying much – like a 5th rounder in 2025 at the most, maybe conditional if he plays some games. He’s a cheap QB and obviously still has a ton of upside – plus he’s still quite young, and this offense would fit his physical abilities. Also he’s under contract for next year at a pretty cheap rate, and is dirt cheap this year.
From what I’ve read, he’s not dumb, isn’t slow to pick things up, he’s just not developed as quickly as you need for a championship level team due to the injuries. It’s not Josh Rosen, best I can tell, where literally everyone hates and he’s got a rep for not working hard.
So call up Lynch and get a deal done, again, assuming it’s a cheap deal.
August 25th, 2023 at 6:09 pm
Here’s the plan…
Start Baker
Sell jerseys
Baker epic fails hilariously we all laugh
Bring in Trask
Trask balls out solidifies himself as future QB
Get top 5 pick anyway
Trade down get a schlitload of picks – hopefully multiple 1st/2nd round
Have a winning team next 10 years
Profit
August 25th, 2023 at 6:10 pm
Rod – Trey Lance got beat out by Sam Darnold and Brock Purdy
We got Trask. Stick to the plan.
August 25th, 2023 at 6:27 pm
“Man, Joe is almost shocked how much people (outside of Florida) shat on Mayfield. It’s like the guy never made the playoffs much less won a playoff game.”
LOL did you watch any football last season?
August 25th, 2023 at 8:12 pm
The season hasn’t even started and all you fair weather fans are already talking bout next years draft.. Have some confidence in your damn team. JOE should be ashamed of himself for writing such an article, seems like you are a fair weather fan also. I am born and raised in Tampa so I will be a Bucs fan no matter the outcome and @#ck off if you feel differently. I hope Kyle gets to start a few this year and prove all you wrong
August 25th, 2023 at 8:50 pm
If we land a top pick we need to trade it away.
August 25th, 2023 at 10:17 pm
I just can’t with these ridiculous predictions….
2 wins? 4 wins?
C’mon man…
One look at the starting roster says that’s basically impossible.
Of course I’m a homer and fully realize that – but the defense alone wins us quite a few games…
I fully expect a top 10 defense and more points than last year. So minimum 9 wins if that is the case.
August 26th, 2023 at 4:37 am
Wow anyone want to buy my tickets?
Geez! No wonder SI is in the tank.
Go Bucs!
August 26th, 2023 at 6:44 am
Rod: Trey Lance got traded to the Cowboys for a 4th rounder. BTW: I remember those Perkins days, starting a season 2-0 and then suddenly being 2-7 on the way to a 5-11 or 6-10 season. Perkins’ 3 a days gassed the players in training camp. He ran his team into the ground ala Les Steckle who used to make his players climb ropes like it was a circa 1956 PE class. Bucs used to win just enough games under Perkins to miss out on the top shelf generational players like Deion Sanders, Aikman, Derrick Thomas, Barry Sanders , Cortez Kennedy, etc…. Somehow I think Bowels will somehow get the team to 6-11 or 7-10 and pull the same trick. Picking around #10 in the draft so that if they want the generational QB they will have to package a big deal as the Panthers did this past spring to move from #9 to #1.
August 26th, 2023 at 12:01 pm
Perkins days. Smack dab in the middle of me becoming a Bucs fan and knowing what I was getting into. Perkins and Vinny.
Wow that sucked!
August 26th, 2023 at 1:33 pm
Yes I’m a Bucs fan, but saying we only get 2 wins with Lavonte, D White, Winfield, Vita, Barrett, Davis, Evans, Godwin and a handful of young talent sounds like a take from someone who doesn’t know football that well.. I agree we should get at least 4 wins just by defensive talent alone. As long as the mayfield/trask combo isn’t disgustingly bad that is
August 26th, 2023 at 1:36 pm
Caleb Williams usually has a ridiculous amount of time to throw in the pocket. I watched some highlights and a lot of them are him standing in the pocket for 5-6 seconds!!! Goodluck getting anywhere close to that amount of time behind this atrocious O-Line