The 3-1 Bucs have yet to be truly tested this year. A four-game sample size is too small to really reach any conclusions about how good, average or bad this Bucs team is this year.

“It’s the second quarter,” head coach Todd Bowles said on Wednesday. “We haven’t done anything. We went 3-1 – that’s it. That doesn’t mean anything. Nobody remembers September once you get to December. We’ve got to take care of business, we’ve got to grind, we’ve got to work, we’ve got to scratch, we’ve got to claw.”

Tampa Bay was good enough to beat a pair of 1-4 teams to start the season, with wins at Minnesota and at home against Chicago. But a 25-11 beat-down at the hands of the defending NFC champion Philadelphia Eagles proved that the Bucs aren’t anywhere close to being an elite team.

A 26-9 win at New Orleans was impressive, but we don’t how good or bad the 3-2 Saints ultimately are either. They should have more clarity about what type of team they have at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday at the conclusion of their throwback game against a formidable 4-1 Detroit Lions squad.

The Lions are one of seven remaining opponents on this year’s schedule with a winning record. Only four teams – the Packers, Texans and Titans (all 2-3) and the winless Panthers – have losing records.

Records Of Bucs’ Remaining 2023 Opponents

Bucs ILB Devin White and Bills QB Josh Allen – Photo by: USA Today

49ers 5-0
Lions 4-1
Bills 3-2
Jaguars 3-2
Colts 3-2
Falcons (twice) 3-2
Saints 3-2
Packers 2-3
Texans 2-3
Titans 2-3
Panthers (twice) 0-5

With the Bucs having to play the 3-2 Falcons twice, including the week after the Lions game, Tampa Bay has eight of its remaining 13 games against teams with a current winning record. The Bucs have a half-game lead in the NFC South right now over the Falcons and the Saints, who are both 3-2. Tampa Bay also holds the current head-to-head tiebreaker against New Orleans due to its Week 4 win on the Bayou.

The combined record of the team’s remaining opponents is 30-22 – and that’s only counting the Falcons and the Panthers once each. Take out winless Carolina as an outlier and the record improves to an even more formidable 30-17.

Only 4 Bucs Opponents Currently Have A Losing Record

Bucs CB Zyon McCollum and Panthers TE Tommy Tremble – Photo by: USA Today

With only four opponents with losing records currently on the docket, this is the year the Bucs cannot afford to stub their toe against lesser foes. Last year, Tampa Bay lost winnable games at Pittsburgh, Carolina and Cleveland en route to finishing 8-9, yet winning the division.

This Bucs team cannot afford such losses this year if it wants to win the NFC South for a third straight year. Tampa Bay must win its winnable games, and that means sweeping winless Carolina and going at least 3-1 in both the AFC South and the NFC North, which are down divisions this year.

With the team no longer having a Super Bowl-caliber roster that can simply win on talent alone, the margin for error is much smaller in 2023. That’s evidenced in the fact that Tampa Bay is 3-0 in games when it wins the turnover margin and 0-1 in games when it doesn’t. Even in the loss to Philadelphia, the Bucs didn’t lose the turnover battle, as it wound up being 2-2, but the team was trounced anyway.

It took a 3-0 turnover margin advantage just to beat a bad Vikings team by only three points – 20-17. That kind of lopsided turnover margin advantage for a more talented Bucs team, like the 2021 version that went 13-4, would have meant a victory similar to the 38-3 drubbing Tampa Bay laid on Chicago that year.

Instead, the Bucs beat a bad Bears team this year by just 10 points, 27-17, even with a 2-0 turnover margin advantage. And that was a three-point game with just over two minutes remaining until Shaq Barrett’s pick-six.

Bucs OLB Joe Tryon-Shoyinka and Falcons RB Tyler Allgeier – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

A win over a 4-1 Lions team on Sunday would go a long way for the Bucs. Not only would it be another NFC victory, which would help in the conference playoff race and the playoff seeding scenario, it would also give us a better indication of just how good Tampa Bay is – and how good the Bucs can become.

A loss would lump the Bucs back down with the Falcons and Saints and turn the NFC South division race into a dogfight, especially with a home game against Atlanta looming next week.

“The creamsicle [game] is nice for the fans, even some of the players looked at it nice, but the game is played the same way,” Bucs head coach Todd Bowles said. “We’re not going to win the game because we put on different-colored uniforms. We’ve got to get back to the grind, we’ve got to work, we’ve got to scratch, we’ve got to claw, we’ve got to do all of the little things right to give ourselves a chance.”