Super Bowl Light Years Away
February 3rd, 2015
Watching the Seahawks and the Patriots in the Super Bowl made it really, really, really difficult to comprehend the Bucs being on the greatest stage in sports within the next five years.
Look, when you are in the basement of the worst division in the NFL, when the division winner had a losing record, and you haven’t won a division game since the words “Bucs” and “Schiano” were used in the same sentence, you are not just a bad team, you are brutal.
As Tuna Parcells famously said, “You are what your record says you are.” A reminder: the Bucs were 2-14 in 2014.
Andrew Astleford of Fox Sports Florida typed a story looking at what the Bucs must do just to even get to the playoffs.
The roadblock: The offense needs a major overhaul. Hiring Dirk Koetter as coordinator after he worked in the same capacity with the Atlanta Falcons gives the Bucs veteran NFL eyes leading the unit next season. The group spun its wheels when former offensive coordinator Jeff Tedford was absent following a heart procedure in late August, and quarterbacks coach Marcus Arroyo failed to grow into an effective play caller before the Bucs finished 29th in the NFL in scoring (17.3 points per game). So the Bucs have pretty much started over with their approach. Expect more adjustment of the line to happen — Will Anthony Collins ever start again? Why should he? — and a stronger running game would help too. Beyond Mike Evans and Vincent Jackson, it’s hard to find potential difference-makers on offense.
Reason to believe: Forget the Super Bowl. The Bucs feel so far away from reaching the playoffs for the first time since 2007. Remember, as bad as the NFC South was last season, Tampa Bay never scraped together a division victory. So keep everything in perspective. Still, there will be some optimism found in whoever is taken with the No. 1 pick. And the urgency to produce should help the Bucs as well. Tampa Bay can’t finish with two wins again, or Smith might not see a third year.
Joe fears the Bucs are so rotten they will waste the best years of Gerald McCoy and Lavonte David, the latter has never experienced a winning season.
How rare/awful is that, a talent as good as David and he’s never been on a winning team in the NFL?
And if Bucs coach Lovie Smith only doubles his number of wins from last year — normally a fantastic feat — it may be evidence that Leeman Bennett was actually reincarnated.
Just think: The Bucs could very well triple their number of wins from last year and still finish with losing record. That’s how many holes this team has, almost all on a revamped offense.
February 3rd, 2015 at 6:20 am
Why sit back and watch? Where’s the hope? I want you to write an article on why bucs fans should remain hopeful. The bucs play is pathetic on offense. On defense it’s average. How can I go around a proud buc fan when there’s nothing to be be proud about. Certain individuals sure LVD and GMAC sure but as a team i just can’t anymore. Why should I keep rooting for these guys? Because I’m a die hard fan?? Look I’m a fan of FOOTBALL, I love the bucs but last year was terrible and no matter who is drafted I don’t see much happening. The top ten teams in the league would embarrass the bucs on every level. offense, defense, special teams, coaching, where is the advantage??
February 3rd, 2015 at 7:05 am
Vincente, you DO NOT love the Bucs. If you did, you wouldn’t be asking those questions. Please do not take up my elbow room at the stadium when we start winning again.
February 3rd, 2015 at 7:17 am
I’m here because I’m curious how Joe feels about Johnny Football this morning? I’m not saying Joe doesn’t know football, he clearly knows more than I do, however I’m glad we passed on that turd. Hopefully he gets his personal life turned around and then football but I’m really glad it’s not a Buccaneers issue. That being said, the question was asked ” how do I go around and stay a proud Bucs fan”? Loyalty and faith. The Bucs, if you remember were horrible for a long time when a man named Sam Wyche drafted the core of our great teams. Yes Sam Wyche, not Tony Dungy!!! Have loyalty and faith that the team will get turned around in the near future… And thank you 6 pound 8 ounce baby Jesus for not drafting Joes man crush Johnny Football!!!
February 3rd, 2015 at 7:39 am
We are not that far away. We get Jameis this year and get rid of Lovie at the end of this season and we could be there in no time.
February 3rd, 2015 at 8:30 am
Per: Bill Parcells
February 3rd, 2015 at 8:34 am
Just because Winston played n a “Pro-Style” offense, does not mean he’s ready to start day one in the NFL, this is NOT Andrew Luck we’re talking about, it’s a kid who’s had exactly 2 years of college experience, so please lets stop with Jesus is coming down off the cross to save the Bucs, that’s just a pipe dream.
I’ve said this before, the Lovie Smith hiring will go down as the worst HC hire the Glazers’ have made since owning the team. When he is fired on black Monday of 2016, he’ll have set this franchise back another 5 years.
February 3rd, 2015 at 8:42 am
Bucs are light years away from Superbowl.
That is the reason we should draft Mariota. Take the guy with as much upside as Winston but not the off field issues. Did any of you Glennon/Mariota basher’s catch the stat that Brady is 1 for 23 in passes over 20 yards in the Superbowl?
All he does is throw to wide open receivers. I think I’ve heard that as a knock against Mariota.
I AM IN NO WAY COMPARING MARIOTA OR GLENNON TO BRADY. I’m just pointing out the holes in your arguments about Glennon and Mariota.
February 3rd, 2015 at 8:58 am
“Super Bowl light years away.” Thanks Joe, now I’m ready for a great Tuesday in Tampa Bay. Sooooooo much negativity
February 3rd, 2015 at 8:59 am
Last year really sucked – and YET – I believe that if L&L can find a way to fill 5 spots with good players – then the Bucs will be relevant again and have a good chance to win more games than they lose.
– QB (Winston please!)
– OG
– OT
– DE
– MLB
Yes we also need a safety, nickle CB, slot receiver, punter and return specialist. But if L&L cab fill those 5 spots with good players who are substantial upgrades from last year – whether via draft or FA – then the Bucs will be contenders again – this year! We’re closer than many think to being a real NFL team again.
February 3rd, 2015 at 9:09 am
The defense was average in 2013, but NOT in 2014.
Another repost, sorry. Please ignore.
tickrdr Says:
February 1st, 2015 at 5:26 pm
The Bucs defense was ranked 16th by game stats in 2013, and gave up 389 points for the season.
The Bucs defense was ranked 25th by game stats in 2014, and gave up 410 points for the season.
Which offensive or defensive player had a better season under Lovie Smith”s coaching and tutelage in 2014, than they had in 2013????????
But, we were a 4-12 team in 2013,………………. right????
tickrdr
February 3rd, 2015 at 9:13 am
Another repost to ignore, sorry.
tickrdr Says:
February 1st, 2015 at 7:12 pm
Let’s not forget the offensive side of the ball:
(As always, I hope I did the “cipherin’, and the “gezintas” correctly)
In 2013, the Bucs scored 288 points, and averaged 277 yards per game.
That included 2820 yds passing (32nd) and 1612 rushing (22nd).
In 2014, the Bucs scored 277 points, and averaged 292 yds per game.
That included 3297 yds passing (25th), and 1375 yds rushing (29th).
In 2013, Josh Freeman was the QB for the first 3 games, and the Bucs’ offense
scored a total of 34 points, which is an average of 11.3 ppg.
In 2014, Mike Kafka played some in Atlanta, and the Bucs scored 7 pts with him as QB. I did subtract that from the total of 277 points, i.e. 270 pts left.
In 2014, Josh McCown played 10.5 games, and the Bucs scored 158 pts, which is an average of 15.0 points per game. He passed for 1880 yds, which is an average of 163 yds per game. (ignoring Kafka’s yards)
In 2013, Mike Glennon was the QB for 13 games, and the Bucs’ offense scored 254 points, which is an average of 19.5 ppg.
In 2014, Mike Glennon was the QB for just under 5.5 games (minus Kafka’s qtr), and the Bucs scored 112 points, which is 20.4 ppg. He passed for 1417 yards, which is an average of 257 yds per game.
So, it appears that the Schiano/Glennon offense in 2013 scored more points, rushed for more yards, and ranked higher in rushing for the year, than the Smith/McCown offense in 2014. In the 2014 season, MG8 threw for more TDs per game, and fewer INTs per game. He threw for 94 more yards per game than McCown. He scored 5.4 points per game MORE than McCown, and had 4th quarter leads in four of the five games he played, and won a 4th quarter comeback victory @ Pittsburgh, which had never happened in the previous 65 tries by a number of other teams. Yet, he was benched by Lovie Smith??????????
BTW, if you look up that 257 yds per game for MG8, that would rank 10th for the regular season overall, and slightly better than the two quarterbacks playing tonight.
tickrdr
February 3rd, 2015 at 9:28 am
Damn it tickrdr stop muddying the waters here at JBF with actual facts! (Sarcastic smack talk) We all know that Glennon sucks because he has a long neck and doesn’t run a 4.5 40 and was drafted in the third round by that horrible tyrant Schiano. We need a franchise QB who passes the eyeball test of professional JBF bloggers, a rare can’t miss winner perhaps like Manziel?
February 3rd, 2015 at 9:29 am
gotta crawl before you walk……we’re light years away from the superbowl but not very far off from the playoffs and you have to get there to even have a chance, many teams get hot and reach the superbowl like the panthers did one year. but talk playoffs before superbowl, we’ve been bad so far that would be good for any bucs fan if we made the playoffs even if we got knocked out in the first round because lovie can then say yea we really are headed in an upward direction. No one expects it yet and they probably have a friendly schedule made for losing teams so they have to make a jump this year
February 3rd, 2015 at 10:01 am
We all watched the Superbowl and one of the glaring facts about the coach of the Dirty Birds Pete Sparrow and the coach of the Patriots was that each could evaluate talent very well. The wide receiver Matthews who up until the Superbowl had not caught a pass in the NFL. The Defensive Back Malcolm Butler who was an undrafted player who was the media’s pick for the two weeks prior to the game to be the player who lost the game for the Patriots.
Both coaches showed incredible talent in evaluating players because they are not perennial losers and do not get the top draft picks each off season. The Patriots have been contenders for nearly 15 years and that is directly due to both Pete Carrol and Bill Belichick having control over football matters…more importantly they have the talent to find, develop, and coach players other teams would not look at!
Bill Belichick…whether you respect him or hate him, has more talent in the pimple on his big pasty white butt than Lovie has in his entire body and the bodies of everyone on that coaching staff. The problem is not needing more and better players, the problem is the Buc’s do not have a coach who can win with high draft picks, let alone talent that everyone else passes on inthe NFL!
I believe it is painfully obvious that even with the number 1 pick, Lovie has no prayer of fielding a winning team because he cannot evaluate talent, he is a horrible coach, and he could not formulate a game plan (different game plan for each different team) as Belichick does week in and week out if his life depended on it.
Joe will probably get his way and the Rapist Winston will be drafted by the Buc’s, but Lovie Smith will not be the one to develop his talent, whether that is talent for playing football or talent for criminal behavior. I just hope that Joe does not have to go into protective custody after Winston assualts several Tampa daughters and the Glennon (fathers) Mob start looking for him!
FIRE LOVIE SMITH TODAY….GIVE THE BUC’S A CHANCE TO GET BETTER!
Greg Schiano (i.e. thats how long it has been sinces the Buc’s won a division game!)
February 3rd, 2015 at 10:11 am
Don’t squash the Bucs fans hope for a competitive winning team this upcoming season. Stranger things have happened despite the odds. I definitely expect improvement. Even the lousiest teams fans believe the future is brighter, call it blind optimism.
February 3rd, 2015 at 10:56 am
tickrdr-
So what? You’re comparing two absolutely dreadful offenses. I don’t know what you think you are proving other than as bad as Marcus Arroyo was and as far over his head as he was, he wasn’t much worse than Mike Sullivan.
February 3rd, 2015 at 10:57 am
this article feels like an EKG for fan enthusiasm. I’m pretty down there. We are still, Still, Jesus tap dancing Nixon STILL rebuilding. We’re enamored with the past and it’s killing us. Even the teams we try to emulate are antiquated. The Giants, The Steelers…Ha, couldn’t find a use for Blount but had no RB in the playoffs. Curious. Lovie isn’t the answer and the GM…is he worse or are his hands just tied?
February 3rd, 2015 at 11:07 am
@Greg Schiano
see that’s why you got fired schiano!!!! Chris Matthews I mean come on be serious he was picking apart a small corner a former corner cut by the bucs, you put a guy that big on a slot corner what do you think will happen. I think people are going to far, this was a tall corner who can run and is fast and hey you make a great throw and all you have to really do is hold your arms out and catch the ball, those were dimes Russell Wilson threw. that’s called scouting and game planning…taking advantage of matchups and a weakness of a team because what happened to that same receiver when Butler came into the game? Butler was successful because of the head coach who was mindful enough to practice those rub plays and like he said film study and getting beat in practice on the same play allowed him to recognize what was coming…great player butler but Matthews meh don’t think so, don’t think any of their receivers are worth spit
February 3rd, 2015 at 11:10 am
for everyone saying the bucs offense sucks….it’s too bad you wont feel really stupid when the offense is better when we actually have an offensive coordinator calling the plays and how that experience makes a difference….as bad as the line was, the quarterback and the play calling by a college qb coach, the bucs still weren’t dead last in offense lol if your middle of the pack in this division on offense and your defense is the tops like panthers were last year then you have a chance to be whatever you want to be
February 3rd, 2015 at 11:48 am
I was really going to respond to you but:
couldn’t have put it in any better words.
So you’d rather have the franchise take a step back before it takes a step forward?
Are you going to want to fire the next coach after 2 years if he messes up?
Are you implying that Winston doesn’t want to reach his potential? Or that we need linebackers?
You know, Lovie believes in collecting D-lineman. I believe he once said that when you think you have enough good D-linemen, you go get another one.
That’s the only reason i believe that Johnson will stay. A combination of that statement as well as Raheem’s, “I’ll tolerate you until i can replace you” draws me to that conclusion.
If that’s the argument you would like to make, Luck has 3 years of college starting experience to Winston’s 2 years. Here are their numbers after 2 years of playing time.
Per Wikipedia:
Although that INT number is alarmingly high, you have to take the good and the bad when you have a guy throwing 65TDs. You also have to believe that that number will go down with some pro level coaching.
As Jay-Z once said, “Men lie, women lie; numbers don’t.”
February 3rd, 2015 at 11:51 am
Trenches start NOW! This year….free agency AND the draft. Look at the trenches of those Superbowl teams! Call me crazy, but I think thats where you start building first! Even Brady, Wilson and Manning wouldve been horrible behind our O line.
And what good does having two 1000+ yard receivers and a “capable” QB do when the D cant go into the 4th qtr with the lead and help keep the other team from scoring? Main stars on that D are GMC and David! Cant hold leads when you only have two main stars. Get a 3rd star, Leonard Williams.
February 3rd, 2015 at 1:03 pm
I don’t care who the QB is, pick anyone in their heyday and put them with our OL and they will be killed.
Brady did well in the SB because he was throwing in less than 2.6 seconds most of the time, Winston can’t think and throw in that time, I don’t know if Mariota can or not but he does think faster and throw faster than Winston.
February 3rd, 2015 at 1:05 pm
@Toes on the Line:
Agree with the sarcasm of your post completely. Thanks!
@Brandon:
As suggested in the first line, just ignore it please. That is what I do after reading most of what you post. Agree to disagree, that is the answer.
tickrdr
February 3rd, 2015 at 2:36 pm
@espo I spend the money to watch these guys play and im all the way over here in texas. Don’t tell me I’m not fan. I go to a few games every year for the last 6 years cause I can finally afford to do so. Sorry if my frustrations get the best of me but I sit there and watch these guys and I see no emotion. The stands are quite, the fans bore me to death, and I’m directly behind the bench! I’m always gonna root for these guys, don’t start telling me I’m not a fan. I’m still here and I’m not going any where. But do you blame me for not wanting to spend my very hard earned money on these guys? Nope. Not this year. I’ll just stay here and texas and watch them from my living room.
February 3rd, 2015 at 2:38 pm
And I’ve been a fan since 95. I was 13 years old when my dad gave me my first bucs jersey.
February 3rd, 2015 at 5:08 pm
Vincente,
They suck. I’m not claiming they don’t. I will still be a proud Bucs fan no matter what. That’s my team. I know no other way. If you can’t, just like YOU said, then in my opinion you do not love the Bucs. I’m glad you’re in Texas. That elbow room thing shouldn’t be an issue.
February 3rd, 2015 at 5:11 pm
You’re also a shi**y Floridian. Unless you happen to be stationed there (if so, my apologies) or are otherwise forced, I don’t know of too many people who would leave this area for Texas. Usually the other way around.
February 3rd, 2015 at 5:16 pm
Time to let go of 2014 Joe and turn positive for 2015. All this negativity is harmful and hurtful!!! The goal is to get to the playoffs first NOT the Superbowl. Dallas, Green Bay and Baltimore are all teams that feel worse than Tampa does today. So close…..
As a former player and coach, at a high level, as many of the bloggers on this site have been, you have to learn to let go and look forward. New players, new coaches and a new season brings new hope eternal!!!
February 3rd, 2015 at 10:36 pm
Team is so far away from being competitive. They will have to over pay for mediocre free agents to come here. Lovie’s archaic approach will create more losing than winning. McCoy and David will be wasted along with Jackson and Evans.
Years of bad drafting and even worse coaching hires have set this team back years.
February 4th, 2015 at 12:17 am
@espo I was born, raised, and will more than likely die in Texas. I’m not a big fan of Florida. Just the bucs. I love it here. It’s all I know. I won’t speak bad about Florida. My first post on here was out of frustration. I mean it’s hard being a fan but I will always be a fan. Of course I’m looking forward to this next season it’s just hard to see the positives when there are so many negatives. I guess what I should have posted was I will no longer be spending thousands of dollars a year to watch this product in person. If you add the cost of flights for me and my wife, the hotel stay, the food, the car rental, and the actual game day tickets with parking and concessions, I’m easily spending close to 5 grand in a little over 3 days. I work in the oilfield and that money is hard earned cash. This year I’ll just stay home. That’s really what I was trying to say.
February 4th, 2015 at 12:29 am
I don’t want to be questioned as a fan because in my town of 12,000 ppl I’m the guy they call the bucs fan during football season. There are literally ppl coming up to me saying “hey your the bucs fan right?” I’m like the only one in my town lol. I wish I could show you some of the things ppl would rewrite on my Facebook wall, or all the stupid internet memes that ppl make. It was funny at first but after they were embarrassed in Atlanta it really sucked and there was nothing I could do about it. I’m honestly more bummed out my team is doing so bad. It got to the point to where I just knew they were gonna lose. Do you know how hard it is only being able to listen to the games on bucs.com for the whole season? We might get lucky and get one nationally televised game a year and that will be the only one I see besides the ones I’m actually at ray jay to watch. They won’t even even show the bucs on nfl redzone. Maybe a couple of times but the media doesn’t care about the bucs. I’m a bucs fan. A REAL bucs fan. Please don’t question my loyalty to these guys.
February 4th, 2015 at 6:59 am
Vincente, You could always become a Jaguars fan.
February 4th, 2015 at 8:36 am
Spartin if I’m gonna suffer I’ll suffer as a bucs fan.