Bucs coach Lovie Smith addresses his team just after the overtime upset over Atlanta. (Photo courtesy of Buccaneers.com.)

Welcome to Victory Monday, Bucs fans.

No, the Bucs are not a perfect team. Far from it. But they are back in the playoff race.

Scoff at Joe if you will, but look at the schedule. The next four games are winnable. If the Bucs can pull off a road upset over the best team in the NFC South while missing so many offensive weapons, then they can hang with the Giants, the Tony Romo-less Cowboys, the erratic Eagles and the Colts.

Yes, the Bucs are 3-4, but in four of the past five years, a team that finished with eight wins or less has made the playoffs. On paper, the Bucs are not a playoff team, not even with the eyeball test. But they are in the hunt. It doesn’t matter how pretty you are, it is what your record is when the season ends.

Kwon’s Brother

Joe generally doesn’t like to write about a player’s family issues. It almost feels like taking advantage a guy’s troubles for a story, a gain of some degree. And Joe isn’t a sappy, touchy-feely kind of writer, either, in case you haven’t noticed.

As we all likely know by now, Kwon Alexander’s younger brother was murdered last week. Alexander easily could have gotten a pass from the Bucs to go back home to Alabama and be with his family. Not one person would have blinked an eye. Shoot, Joe would be surprised if the Bucs didn’t advise Alexander to go home.

Instead, Alexander chose to be with his teammates. Talk about dedication! Talk about a teammate! Joe is struggling for words to describe how impressed he is with Alexander. That’s the type of mentality this team needs to climb from the cellar of the NFL and instill an attitude in the locker room (as opposed to “‘tude”). Sometimes, guys gloss themselves as leaders or try to hoist themselves as a team leader without substance or foundation.

You can bet your sweet rear end that from now on, if Alexander speaks up in a team setting, then he will have everyone’s full attention. He already played 110 percent. He put actions before words yesterday. When his family needed him the most, he honored his responsibility to his second family, his football family. And he balled out.

Talk about commitment. As Logan Mankins said to Alexander before the team, arm draped around his weeping teammate, “What this guy did today was something special. … And to play the way you did… man, I’ve got a lot of respect for what you did today.”

Making A Play

It was seven hours after the Bucs win as Joe typed this near midnight (yes, Joe has odd sleep hours) and it was almost stunning to re-watch how the Bucs closed the game.

In one of the more grisly defensive performances Joe has ever witnessed (more about that later), it just so happened to be the man Bucs fans love to hate, Gerald McCoy, who nearly brought Matty Ice down with a sack but forced him into a desperate throw on fourth down that fell incomplete.

Bucs fans, for some reason, cannot swallow the fact GMC is a good player, but not (yet) a Hall of Fame-caliber stud. How this somehow has become some great sin, Joe isn’t sure.

However, there is a bit of merit in the argument that GMC often is missing, when the Bucs need someone, anyone, to step up and make a play, make a stop. That was glaring in the nut-kick choke job at Washington a week ago.

Well, GMC’s critics need to shut their trap. There was GMC draped all over Matty Ice on fourth down in overtime. The win was so emotional for the Bucs – in part because for the better part of the game, the Bucs defense redefined the definition of “sieve” – that when Matty Ice’s final throw fell to the turf, players broke down at midfield.

Maybe, just maybe, this is a team turning point? Maybe, just maybe, this is a turning point for GMC’s career? Maybe, just maybe, this is a turning point for the Bucs franchise all too eager to shed its losing ways?

Three Wins From Job Security

All through the offseason, Joe’s goal for the Bucs was six wins. Joe thought that was a reasonable number. Given the fact the Bucs would be playing with a rebuilt offense and a rookie quarterback, and an ugly team foundation that finished 2-14 the prior season, six wins seemed possible, though a ceiling.

Joe also was convinced if Bucs coach Lovie Smith won six games, it was a lock for him to return. Any time you triple the amount of wins from a previous season, that is a helluva job.

Is Lovie doing a good job this year? No and yes. His defense is an insult. But Lovie’s handling of Jameis, both directly and indirectly, has been just about perfect. In that respect, Lovie has done a helluva job with the franchise’s prized asset. It’s great the way he has stepped away and let Jameis be Jameis while hiring Dirk Koetter to lead the offense, and staying mostly out of Koetter’s way.

The Bucs have nine games left. If they go .333, winning only three more games, barring something completely and totally unforeseen, Lovie will be your Bucs coach in 2016.

Lovie’s Defense May Pearl Harbor Him

Joe wrote last night that you could watch Pasco County 7-on-7 high school summer football leagues and never see a team complete 16 passes in a row. But that is exactly what Matty Ice did to the Bucs at one point yesterday, atrocious for a professional defense.

(7-on-7 football, for those that aren’t aware, is a form of flag football where six offensive skill position players and a center, play against seven defenders, made up of any combination of linebackers and defensive backs. It is a passing format.)

Aside from the forced turnovers, we have may witnessed the worst display of Bucs defense since the Dixie Chicks hung 42 in the first half alone on Raheem Morris in his final game as Bucs coach.

First off, when fans ask, “Why is [pick a defensive back] starting?” Who else you going to start? So you want Loaf Jennings to start? This just in, folks, if someone is walking the streets in early November and cannot even hold a gig on a practice squad somewhere, there is a pretty good chance he is as rotten as a two-week old banana. There are no fixes this time of year aside, from what resides on the roster.

The fact Lovie’s defense is this decrepit tells Joe it seriously needs major work in the offseason. A heavy-laden defensive draft is pretty much a given. Remember, assistant coaches contracts (aside from the new hires this year) are up after this season. It is a safe bet that Leslie Frazier is gone, as he is little more than a coffee fetcher after Lovie has pushed him aside. Is Joe Cullen, nice guy that he is, intense guy that he is, really getting the most of the defensive linemen? Is Gil Byrd coaching up the defensive backs? If anything, the defensive backs are terribly regressing, not improving.

If Lovie doesn’t return next year, the decision will have its roots in the defense. Don’t be shocked if Team Glazer tries to push Lovie to bring in a new defensive coordinator. Probably the best thing for Lovie is to do what he did with Koetter: Hire a competent, proven defensive coordinator and get out of the way.

And may Joe also suggest that a major housecleaning of defensive personnel? It really wouldn’t shock Joe if there were as many as six new starters on defense next year, between the draft, free agency and perhaps a trade.

Team Record

Oh, and how grotesque was this defense yesterday? Forget the Bucs nearly gave up 500 yards of offense to the Dixie Chicks. Forget the Bucs threw away a three-score lead (again) for the second straight week.

The Dixie Chicks never punted yesterday. Not once. Per Greg Auman of the Tampa Bay Times, never in Bucs history has the team not forced an opponent to punt once.

Think of all the rancid Bucs teams of the past, and even those skunky units forced good teams to punt once. Not this Bucs defense.

Simply put, not one member of the defensive coaching staff, up to and including de facto defensive coordinator Lovie, should be comfortable in their jobs.

NFL Thoughts

Patriots: Tom Brady, yada… yada… yada…

Chiefs: Holy Fish and Chips are the Lions bad. Can’t the NFL just leave them behind in England? Alex Smith threw two touchdown passes. Yes, really!

Crows: Joe Flacco throws for 319 yards and a touchdown and suddenly, the soon-to-be Los Angeles Chargers will be looking for a new coach. Two gut-punching losses in a row for San Diego.

Vikings: The Vikes score 13 fourth quarter points to rally for the win in Chicago. The big play was for a 40-yard touchdown from Teddy Bridgewater to Stephon Diggs with three minutes left.

Cardinals: When snotty football geeks try to say wins is not a quarterback stat, Joe counters with Josh McClown. Puts up a lot of stats, but always loses. Always. Yesterday in Cleveland was more of the same, before he got hurt. Again. Carson Palmer threw four touchdown passes for the Cardinals.

Texans: How bad are the Titans? The got walloped by the lowly Texans. Zach Mettenberger was sacked seven times. Brian Hoyer (!) threw for a pair of touchdowns.

Saints: An arena league game broke out in the Superdome. Drew Brees had seven touchdown passes against the Giants. SEVEN!

Bengals: All Andy Dalton does is win as he outdueled Big Ben. Steelers running back Le’Veon Bell is out for the year with a knee injury.

Rams: Todd Gurley went wild with 133 yards against the 49ers.

Raiders: Derek Carr has grown up. Against one of the better defenses in the NFL, he throws for four touchdowns and 333 yards. If Joe was a Jets fan, he’d want to jump out of a window if his choice of quarterback is between Ryan Fitzpatrick and Geno Smith.

Seahawks: In a terribly boring game, the lone touchdown came on a Russell Wilson 22-yard pass to the immortal Luke Willson. Dallas is dreadful without Tony Romo.

Broncos: Peyton Manning… blah… blah… blah…

Non-NFL Thoughts

* That Michigan-Minnesota game Saturday night was cool. Joe thought Michigan would run over Minnesota, which lost its (good) coach just days before due to health reasons. Instead, the Gophers played inspired football and nearly pulled off the upset.

* It really blows Joe’s mind that referees cannot use instant replay. When fans on the couch can see infractions, how the hell cannot officials? Case in point was the crazy end of the Miami-Duke game where not only did a ballcarrier have his knee down, but there were multiple personal fouls on the play by Miami. And the zebras missed them all! No wonder that crew was suspended by the ACC yesterday.

* It is to the point in college football that NFL rules for reviewing instant replay should be adopted because the officials upstairs are so incompetent. Each team gets up to three challenges. If the challenge is wrong, you lose a timeout.

* Really, the same team that upset then-undefeated Oklahoma, that would be the Longhorns, got shut out by Iowa State. Really, Iowa State? A true low point in the proud history of the Longhorns.

* Nebraska got hammered by Purdue. In football. How low has that program sunk? Never in Joe’s wildest dreams would he ever imagine Nebraska losing to both Illinois and Purdue (and maybe Rutgers) in the same season. Mike Riley may be a one-and-done but don’t rewrite history. Bo Pelini was launched because you can only kick the shins of school suits so many times before it comes back to bite you in the rear end unless you win titles (why, hello Bobby Knight!). When recordings leak of you cussing out fans of the school and in a second recording calling a school administrator a lower region of the female anatomy, your only saving grace will be titles and if you don’t have titles, you are gone. That was Pelini. The fact that folks were leaking secret recordings of you every couple of months shows Pelini must have really been an a-hole behind the scenes.

* So Donald Trump is going to be a guest of Cowturd today, huh? Welp.

Joe has a couple of nuggets leftover from his trip to Washington, D.C. last week.

* Joe walked around the National Mall, having already been to the Capitol days before. Joe traveled from the Metro stop at the Smithsonian all the way past the Lincoln Memorial and back. Even though it was overcast, windy and a bit cold, it was a great way to kill a couple of hours.

* The World War II Memorial was, well, a bit underwhelming. It seemed like it tried to be too much, tried to be too many things for too many people which is sort of understandable since it was such a massive conflict. When Joe visited this, there maybe were three or four dozen folks there. Much of those were students on a class field trip. Later, Joe came across the Vietnam Memorial. It’s the second time Joe has visited the place and it was nearly as emotional as the first time Joe was there, when the memorial was still in its infancy. There were hundreds of people there. Joe really doesn’t know what to make of so few people at the World War II Memorial, but so many at the Vietnam Memorial. Maybe because the World War II Memorial is just, blah? Maybe because the Vietnam Memorial is such a masterpiece? Or maybe because there are so few Americans left from the Greatest Generation that it doesn’t resonate? Not sure. Anyway, when Joe saw a group of guys in their 60s and 70s, all with white hair, all with the same type of military caps on, taking their picture at the wall with fallen comrades in the background, and they are all crying, it got to Joe, just like when Joe years ago saw parents at the wall reacting to seeing their son’s name etched in stone forever. It is very moving.

* Many folks told Joe to go to the Spy Museum in Washington, and Joe did. What a friggin’ joke! Joe expected to see a lot about espionage (there was some of that) and real history like the Rosenbergs (there was a little of that) but mostly it was a spoof on spies. Damn near a third of the place was all about James Bond. Joe doesn’t give a damn about James Bond (yes, Joe knows the character was based on writer Ian Fleming who was a British agent). James Bond is a fictitious character. After you take a “Get Smart”-like elevator to the top floor, with cheesy instructions to memorize your new spy profile, you get out and there is a lifesize cutout of Maxwell Smart. What the hell! That’s like going to the Holocaust Museum and at the first exhibit there is a cutout of Col. Klink! Then, steps away, there was a cutout of Diana Rigg, who played a comely spy in the old TV series “The Avengers.” If you are into Hollywood’s take on spies, this museum is for you. If you are into the history of espionage and details on famous spies, you are better off saving your $20 and just surf the internet from your hotel room.

* If you are ever going to tour Washington that tells Joe you are at least somewhat interested in history. So skip the Spy Museum and go to the Newseum. Really cool stuff in there includes a video presentation of war reporters in Vietnam on a 90-foot screen. May be the coolest screen Joe has seen outside of Jerry’s World in Dallas and the Gator Bowl. Man, to watch games on a college football Saturday on that thing!