“It’s Awesome To See The Culture In The Locker Room Change A Little Bit”
December 8th, 2019
Ryan Jensen speaks
A disease has infected the Tampa Bay locker room for years. It’s called incessant losing.
Teaching chronic losers how to win and close out games was perhaps the biggest challenge facing Bruce Arians when he got the job in January.
The years of losing was a lot more than just bad luck and questionable talent.
Anybody paying attention knew that the losing mentality and reality ran deeper than what was seen on the surface.
Now the Bucs are winning. It’s not pretty. But they’re closing out games. A three-game winning streak caps off a 4-of-5 run.
Bucs center Ryan Jensen, who played for winning teams and a true winning program in Baltimore, said after the game he’s starting to smell more of what he used to inhale before he arrived here to start the 2018 season.
“It’s awesome to see the culture in the locker room change a little bit,” Jensen told Buccaneers Radio. And he attributed it to confidence.
Jensen said that with a very measured tone and Joe finds it interesting that he said “a little bit.” Hey, Joe will take it all day long. Winning feels so damn good. The next step is winning meaningful games.
Ex-Bucs tight end Dave Moore noted on Buccaneers Radio how sloppy the Bucs are, and it’s got Moore thinking bigger.
“It makes you wonder how good this team can be if they stop killing themselves,” Moore said.
Amen, Dave.
December 8th, 2019 at 5:10 pm
Getting rid of certain players will do that for you.
December 8th, 2019 at 5:13 pm
Letting “row the boat Kwon” and Gerald go, while replacing them with White and Suh has helped turn the culture around too. We need more guys like them, JPP, Nassib, and Barrett though imho to finish the cleansing.
December 8th, 2019 at 5:14 pm
Winning will do that!
December 8th, 2019 at 5:16 pm
I split the season in 2 for a first year coach. 2-6 and 4-1 so far. If we get to 8-8 I think the NFL will take notice. We already improved from Dirk’s last 2 years. Although he won 9 games his first year.
December 8th, 2019 at 5:16 pm
Well on offense the Bucs were missing their two best o-line starters (no Jensen isn’t better than Smith) and have zero depth, had no running game, and lost their top WR. Meanwhile Winston, who if what Arians said is correct was playing with a broken finger, sat in the pocket, got hit again and again and again, and yet made plays and took his team right down the field for a winning 4th quarter drive.
Also congrats to the defense for holding up and being able to get a stop. The Bucs can score a lot of points, and if the defense can be even around 20th, the Bucs will win a lot of games.
December 8th, 2019 at 5:17 pm
Joe in case you didn’t notice from the pressbox when D.Smith went out for a series his replacement was totally taken advantage of.
Highlights how effective Smith actually is and deserving of a article IMO. Just figured to share in case it was not as glaring as it was from the TV angles.
December 8th, 2019 at 5:18 pm
What Dave Moore really wanted to say and it translated to:
‘Imagine how good this team would be if Jameis Winston would stop turning the ball over”
December 8th, 2019 at 5:18 pm
Winning out will go a lot further than tanking, seeing there are no guarantees on draft day
Keep it up, Go Bucs!!!
December 8th, 2019 at 5:19 pm
plus winning can be contagious rather than tanking for the draft
December 8th, 2019 at 5:19 pm
Let’s not beat around the bush here people……..Jameis Winston is killing this team.
December 8th, 2019 at 5:20 pm
It really is changing… slowly and barely. The beginning of the game sure looked like the culture we’re used to showed it’s ugly head. Both sides of the ball. Then the whole team kicked that culture in the nuts!!
December 8th, 2019 at 5:21 pm
Congrat to Jameis for the alll time season passing years record. First Buc to reach 4,100 years.
December 8th, 2019 at 5:23 pm
JimmyJack – I thought Smith was out for more than series. Also the backup was more useless than if they put a garden chair on the field.
My apologies to anyone that has a garden chair incident in their past.
December 8th, 2019 at 5:25 pm
I enjoyed this game and look forward to the Lions next week.
December 8th, 2019 at 5:26 pm
And remember this Bucszilla 🤡❓The moment Buccaneers HC Bruce Arians CUT Gutless Weed Smoker Vern Hardgraves for having a “I Don’t Give A Damn Attitude ❗️“ The Team, Especially the defense started to play well. In short, play like Hardgraves, Your Ass Is Out The Door ❗️Question To The Great Ira Kaufman ❓When was the last time a Bucs team played a ugly game like they did today vs the Colts AND WON ❗️And I will give Major props to Bucs QB J. Winston for playing the entire 2nd half of the Colts game with a Broken Thumb! GO BUCS 🤡❗️
December 8th, 2019 at 5:26 pm
When Moore says killing themselves I say turns the ball over chronically….. when you TUrn the ball over you will most probably lose, there are some exceptions….. for example today!!
December 8th, 2019 at 5:28 pm
Yea I wasn’t thrilled about DS signing. The only he had I thought was durability but then a back up came in an wow what diff. Glad he was able to come back
December 8th, 2019 at 5:37 pm
Season was over when Bucs were 2-6. Meaningless wins over bad teams will give the clueless owners a false sense of changing the culture. Another year of missing the playoffs. And another year of Licht and JW. Sad!!!!!
December 8th, 2019 at 5:38 pm
Jameis is killing and reviving this team. It’s incredible
December 8th, 2019 at 5:39 pm
I once ran into a garden chair and it took me down. I swear the chair was holding on the incident though. Of course, no call on the play.
December 8th, 2019 at 5:40 pm
Basically been saying that all season long. #MissedOpportunities
December 8th, 2019 at 5:42 pm
@ Rodmunch
Before this game the defense was already in the top 20 (total defense). Probably will stay there because total yards was under 300. Again offensive turnovers made this game close.
December 8th, 2019 at 5:55 pm
If only the whining culture on this fan board would change for the better! Jameis accounted for 30 points and the win but all these loser mentality fans only cry about what he did wrong. Yeah he made some bad plays but he made a WHOLE lot more good plays and the girliemen fans only concetrate on the bad plays. He still would have put up those same #s without the picks. He abused Indy and all you do is heap abuse on him.
December 8th, 2019 at 5:57 pm
Does anyone think this team and the three game win streak is anything other than an aberration because they’re playing “iffy” teams? Do you think we can beat a solid playoff team? It’s a simple answer. No! Need upgrades at many positions and LichtMyBalls has proven he’s incapable time and time again at judging talent. Sorry, but Jay Miss ain’t the answer either. He’ll get you to 8-8, but that’s about it. However, he was money his first start against Pittsburgh in college.
December 8th, 2019 at 6:12 pm
Admit it, Joe……this is better than playing for the draft……we are the second youngest team in the NFL……our players need to play through their mistakes and get a good taste of winning……to hell with the draft pick…..we should be able to get a good RT or DE/DT in the 1st & 2nd round…..A RB and some depth on the Oline later in the draft…..
No need to draft a kicker……FYI….perfect game for Matt Gay…..solid….and we needed it.
December 8th, 2019 at 6:21 pm
The reality is- Jameis is not going to change- he’ll give you 25-35 points on offense and he’ll give the opponent 10-14 points with turnovers, so you need a great D if you want Jameis to be the QB ( Entertainer) and win consistently.
Bucs only have so much cap space, so if you spend $ on OLine upgrades, signing Godwin and maybe a FA rb, what’s that leave for the D?
If you want to win a SB, you’ve got to have a great D. Example- Rams’ Donald production is down this year since Suh is gone, and Brady only has Edelman and White as weapons , but their D is great.
49ers, Ravens, Saints, Bills all have good D – and their QB’s don’t turn it over, but their QB’s are not as explosive as Jameis.
Then again can Wilson, Seahawks or Mahomes, Chiefs single handedly take their teams to SB? I think not…
December 8th, 2019 at 6:32 pm
No doubt that not having McCoy has allowed individuals to grow and Even the veterans
December 8th, 2019 at 6:42 pm
“Congrat to Jameis for the all time season passing years record. First Buc to reach 4,100 years.”
WTF????
Why does that make me feel so old?
December 8th, 2019 at 6:44 pm
A dear friend surprised me with a visit so I missed the last 2 minutes of the game. Bucs won……I will be g##d##ed! What can I say about the D and the QB enigma?? Our punter and kicker had very good games, too.
December 8th, 2019 at 6:57 pm
I hate seeing the ball turned over more than the next guy but the first two INTs by Winston were fantastic plays by Leonard and the 3rd was off Perriman’s hands. I don’t like them but they don’t bother me that much. A win is a win is a win. Jameis played well enough to win.
December 8th, 2019 at 7:52 pm
A few weeks back I dissed Perriman. He is a big reason we won the last two games. Hope he keeps it up. Hope Mike makes it back soon but that kind of injury can take a long tome to heal and often returns.
December 8th, 2019 at 8:25 pm
What I think is funny is that you guys actually believe it is possible to have the entire offense on one players shoulders each week and expect that player to not have any mistakes. You don’t get some of those elite level plays without taking chances. It is really very simple when you team is built up and you can run the ball, use play action, setup things the mistakes go down. When everyone in the stadium knows that you are throwing the ball whenever it matters it makes a very difficult job even harder. Man what this offense would look like with just a 1,000 yard rusher?
December 8th, 2019 at 8:36 pm
I really don’t care what all the Bone Heads on here think. Throwing interceptions is bad football. This team would be very good if we just stop doing that… it is not exciting to watch interceptions in the beginning of the game only to try to come back the whole entire game. It’s a piss-poor way the play football.
December 8th, 2019 at 11:20 pm
Sorry JJ- D Smith isn’t very good IMO, problem is his backup is 10x worse, LOL. I will however give him big props, he went down with an injury and saw his QB getting killed and sacked up and got right back in the game and played pretty well after that.
December 9th, 2019 at 1:23 am
As joe I know has stated several timeS and I agree ! For all the fire Winston crew , who is better that’s going to be a free agent ?? Better yet would you rather go with an unproven rookie ? Even Arians you can tell is impressed by winstons mentality to stay in the game and keep slinging it. I honestly can’t remember a QB since Favre who could go out and keep playing his ass off. Is it frustrating to watch some of these turnovers of course ! However I can’t think of anybody honestly who would keep fighting and not get emotionally drained and give up. I truly think with another off-season and a contract with this coaching staff he will turn the corner. BTW every time this team has had a in their eyes “decent” QB it ends up biting them in the a$$ see Doug Williams , Steve young ! After they were terrible right ?????? “ he said with heavy sarcasm”