“Kill The Past”
May 20th, 2021
Bucs coach Bucco Bruce Arians.
This is both funny and dead-on accurate.
It seems the Bucs are so loaded that they don’t need anything.
Really, the Bucs are like a loaded relative who has done a lot of favors for you in the past. You want to buy them a Christmas gift, but what can you buy them that they don’t already have (outside of possibly gift cards from a Hooters or a couple of four-packs of Big Storm beer).
So in a column about priorities for each NFC team, Marc Sessler of NFL.com admits the Bucs are that rich relative. So the only thing you can give them is amnesia.
In other words, the Bucs have to forget just how damn good they are.
Top priority: Kill the past.
The Chiefs understand what Tampa soon will: Repeating is elusive. The Bucs have every reason to confidently parade around. Their Super Bowl whacking of Kansas City capped a raucous end to a campaign that saw Tom Brady and friends put up 30-plus points per game over their final seven tilts. A juggernaut just beginning to sizzle. Everyone’s back. Besides a little defensive line help, the needs are few. The ceiling is unknown. But no team has won back-to-back titles since the Brady-led Patriots in 2003-04. Now we’ve got Brady’s dad cold-calling Boston radio stations to trumpet: “We expect to beat the Patriots rather handily (in Week 4).” It’s fantastic fodder and happy bluster, but here comes the acid test: Backing it up.
Sessler makes a helluva point. It’s fine for the Bucs to enjoy the fruits of their championship endeavors this spring and through the shortened summer. But once the Bucs hit July and training camp, they need to adopt the time-honored saying of NFL cornerbacks: you have to have a short memory.
Last year is in the past. You live in the now.
With true pros on the roster like Ndamukong Suh, Jason Pierre-Paul, Shaq Barrett and, of course, park-violating, home-invading, NFLPA-ignoring, down-forgetting, handshake-stiffing, jet-ski-losing, biscuit-baking, tequila-shooting, smartphone-phobic, waffle-grilling, trophy-throwing, roller-coaster-scared, numbers-rules-peeved, Bucs-Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady, those guys know what it is like to defend a title (yes, with Suh it is just an NFC title, but still, he’s a pro).
The Bucs have the talent and experience to Go for Two. The only things that could hold them back are injuries and contentment.
May 20th, 2021 at 6:04 am
@Joe
Speaking of Super Bowls and Championships as it relates to Tampa, do you know of how many times and/or the last time in professional sports a trifecta was done as we did last year w/ all three of the Bucs, Rays and Lightning reaching the Championship game/series….
Feel like that feat hasn’t gotten enough attention as it should. We’ve gotten the attention individually as organizations, but you don’t hear to much Nationally about that Championship city trifecta we pulled off last year.
May 20th, 2021 at 6:14 am
Agreed Joe, I’m hoping for the best this season injury wise like last year. The word Contentment will be like a four letter word in a church with Brady and Co. My hope is that, this mentality continues when Brady is done playing. I know you guys have said it before that Devin White was the Brady on D, I think if that is indeed the case, we’ll be fine.
May 20th, 2021 at 6:20 am
Living in the past is the Devil’s Lube. I wanna give the team my devil’s lube speech
May 20th, 2021 at 6:30 am
OMG! A ‘Devil’s Lube Speech’ from Medicated Pete. I can’t think of anything scarier.
May 20th, 2021 at 7:18 am
“Joe thinks Sessler makes a helluva point.”
I wholeheartedly concur …
It’s a pleasure to read a perspective from someone who pens reality verses grandiose proclamations from his bedroom desk on Fantasy Island.
May 20th, 2021 at 7:26 am
The Bucs secondary will be tested right out of the chute by three of the NFL’s top offenses: Dallas, Atlanta, and LA, who are favored to win. May help any overconfidence.
May 20th, 2021 at 7:44 am
Lol LA is favored to beat us???? 🤣 we’ll see after Stafford gets put in the ground by our grave diggers
May 20th, 2021 at 7:55 am
One huge motivator is a second-in-a-row SB championship could influence HoF voters when some of these guys are eligible…like Suh, JPP, David, Evans and Brown.
Maybe other younger guys like Godwin and White, and maybe Barrett if he can put his performance where his mouth is.
May 20th, 2021 at 7:57 am
are there going to be a lot of safety and cb blitzes ?
May 20th, 2021 at 8:01 am
“of course, park-violating, home-invading, NFLPA-ignoring, down-forgetting, handshake-stiffing, jet-ski-losing, biscuit-baking, tequila-shooting, smartphone-phobic, waffle-grilling, trophy-throwing, roller-coaster-scared, numbers-rules-peeved, Bucs-Super Bowl-winning quarterback”
Just a fill-in for lack of actual words to add to short tweets? What a waste of effort. It used to be a great place to read, now with the King page and a half of “hyperlinks” to more King post with again more “hyperlinks” to more King dribble, now we have the GOAT QB in the NFL and you add all this uselessness as a fill in for a lack of effort?
May 20th, 2021 at 8:05 am
Have a few less drinks and actually write something to fill up the space not copy and paste the same $hit different day, again and again and again. Yeah I know Joe write about what interests Joe, so in that frame of thought you want us to click the “hyperlinks” to open another page and the circle continues. I am also able to skip past kings dribble, and I can skip this blog as well. Yeah no worries, I hear ya. ✌
May 20th, 2021 at 8:32 am
I don’t agree with Killing the Past.
The past is what we learn from and what we use to motivate us going forward.
Right Wrong or Indifferent, Killing the past is the problem with the world today. We need to keep an accurate record of History.
That said, in order to maintain greatness. I hope the players look back a last year and remember what motivated them to play better down the after the bye week.
I hope the take the good bad and indifferent lessons learn last year and build on it this year.
Killing the past is the DUMBEST IDEA known to mankind. This Marc S guy is knows nothing of being great in sports. He is not even a creative writers and thus is far from great.
Give me a break, kill the past, “Come on Man”….. <—- Gerrrr
May 20th, 2021 at 8:41 am
OK youngsters let me give some history. Buster Douglas beat Mike Tyson. Joe Namath beat the Colts. Check Namath’s career stats. (fair at best). That rumbling bumbling stumbling Eli Manning and the 9-7 Giants beat the 18-0 Pats led by Tompa. One thing i feel very confident about? There will be no complacency in the locker room as long as Brady id driving the bus. SO??? “On to Cincinnati”. Brady prepares for EVERY GAME like it’s the Superbowl. He will expect nothing less from the entire team. 2007 and 2012 are burned into his brain forever!!!!! So gobblers don’t be strutting your stuff for week 4 too quickly. BTW i’ve been watching for 6 decades
May 20th, 2021 at 8:51 am
I don’t think we need to worry about contentment, and it’s difficult to control injuries. So, let’s just get on with it. All this talk about how difficult it is to repeat is getting boring. Yes, it is difficult. But, no one has ever seen a juggernaut team like the Bucs has coming into this season. I may eat my words, but I can’t see any other team that’s going to stop their roll to another SB victory. The Chiefs are the likely AFC champs again. Can we beat the Chiefs? The answer to that question is fairly obvious. Go BUCS!
May 20th, 2021 at 9:00 am
Now that all teams have some good game tapes of the Bucs, it will be that much harder to repeat……unless the Bucs only ran half of the playbook last year…which may be the case with Brady new to the offense and defense still being young.
May 20th, 2021 at 9:06 am
Love the message!
BA should run gassers on the first day of official TC until the last guy cannot run anymore!
Then tell them last year is finished! Give them the next day off to think about it and come back to go to work on the first game of 2021 !
Love the message!
May 20th, 2021 at 9:26 am
Not sure it has ever been done. Boston, maybe?
But sorry if Joe does not include the Rays. They didn’t get the job done. Getting to a World Series is great but the objective is to win it.
And Joe just knows he is going to trigger some, but the inclusion by some people of a minor league soccer team into the success the Bucs and Lightning had is both insulting and repulsive to Joe. A damn minor league soccer team that plays in a run-down, over-aged minor league baseball park and you are comparing that to a Super Bowl or Stanley Cup champion? Indeed!
May 20th, 2021 at 9:37 am
Alton Green, well said. But I will add, it needs to be more than just Brady. We just read an article that Brady is not that vocal. Whether he is or isn’t, we need JPP, Suh and David to keep our young secondary on their toes.
Winning another SB will be harder than last year. Complacency is the mother of evil – you don’t know you have the disease until your dead in your tracks.
May 20th, 2021 at 10:54 am
At the end of the day, it’s about being assignment sound and beating the man across from you. The Bucs can be better this year than last. They have continuity. They know the playbook. They know how to win and overcome adversity. Now, are the hungry? Do they have the eye of the tiger? Only time will tell, but I feel like we will see the Bucs being dominant and playing with great swagger and confidence this year, but also with precision and great communication.
May 20th, 2021 at 11:20 am
The winner of the AL pennant is a league champion. The World Series is unique in American sports where two league champions play each other for additional bragging rights (and more). We have three league champions here in Tampa Bay:
Lightning: National Hockey League
Buccaneers: National Football League
Rays: American League (of Major League Baseball)
May 20th, 2021 at 2:18 pm
Joe’s going to have to remember that. 🙂
May 20th, 2021 at 5:53 pm
Trust me . They will NOT be complacent or overtly confident ! BA and Brady will see to that matter ! There’ll be NO “Slackers” . Their as hungry for another “ring” as they were for the 1st one.
May 20th, 2021 at 6:54 pm
Jesus, somebody tell Rusty Rhino that it’s a freaking joke.
May 21st, 2021 at 5:41 pm
Yes,it was Boston,,redsox,Pat’s,and bruins
May 21st, 2021 at 5:45 pm
Think I’m wrong guys
May 21st, 2021 at 5:49 pm
Rusty mad lol