Swagmaster?

Lavonte David and a handful of current Bucs defensive players aren’t the only ones who have battled severe mental problems on the football field.

It seems the entire Arizona Cardinals team is infected.

Consider what Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians (a guy to whom Dirk Koetter is often compared) told the PFT Live podcast recently. Much like how David explained that the 2015 Bucs defense was mentally crushed by the first snap of that season, Arians says losing to Jimmy Garoppolo and New England in Week 1 last year ruined their season.

“I think the biggest reason was losing the opener on Sunday Night Football to the Patriots on that missed field goal,” Arians said. “That took a lot of swagger out of our football team, then we came back and lost to the Rams in another close game. We didn’t win the close games we had won in the past but it all goes back to that first one.”

What Arians conveniently omitted was his Cardinals’ Week 2 humiliation of Tampa Bay last season, a 40-7 drilling in Arizona.

For Arians’ sake, Joe hopes the guy is just spewing a bunch of spin here. But if Arians was being truthful about an opening day loss hurting his team mentally all year, then Joe advises you fly to Las Vegas now and bet the under on whatever the Cardinals’ win total is supposed to be this season.

Regardless, Arians’ talk about “swagger” being so important is interesting. Does Koetter believe that deeply in swagger? Mike Evans certainly does, and so does America’s Quarterback, Jameis Winston.

Koetter did order his team to “speak softly and carry a big motherf%#^’n stick” in December. But Joe can’t imagine Koetter ever saying — or believing — that bruised swagger on opening day caused a 7-8-1 record like Arizona had last year.

Joe will say this, though, the Bucs had a massive swagger-focused offseason. New free agent signings DeSean Jackson, Chris Baker and Nick Folk might make an All-Pro swagger team, if there was such a thing. And O.J. Howard might be the definition (at least in college) of a guy who speaks softly and carries a very big stick.