Come together.

For a young player and a first-year starter, Joe was so impressed with the intelligent, winning-attitude words of Bucs cornerback Zyon McCollum on Wednesday from New Orleans.

The Bucs bugged out on Tuesday to escape Hurricane Milton. The football staff set up headquarters at a team hotel and the Bucs are practicing at Tulane University.

McCollum didn’t want to hear any excuses the team may have for not winning Sunday related to dodging the storm. In fact, McCollum said evacuating gives the Bucs more reasons to win.

Joe loves that winning attitude! Adapt, adjust, overcome.

Speaking yesterday, Bucs offensive coordinator Liam Coen wholeheartedly agreed with McCollum.

“The guys were locked in, focused, you know, there’s a good energy actually,” Coen said about the vibe around Bucs practices and the team hotel. “I would say that Zyon [McCollum] is probably correct when he says that sometimes, these moments, these times can bring a team together.

“When you’re on the road and it’s all of us together – our families, our players, our coaches, our staff – we’re all we have right now, so we’re all together, we’re all in this thing together.”

Joe groaned hearing how the team was considering leaving town early. Joe thought now the team had all sorts of built-in excuses to lose. Given how the Bucs have played inconsistent ball the past three weeks, including sleepwalking through the Denver loss so bad that Lavonte David had to rip his teammates for half-arsing it, Joe thought mental cracks in the team were apparent — and uprooting and flying out of state for a week would just widen that crack.

It seems the focused mentality of McCollum is contagious.