The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have made one of the more spectacular turnarounds this NFL season. They started off the season at 1-3, and after a pair of wins, fell to 3-5. Since then, the team has won five games in a row and at 8-5 is tied with the Atlanta Falcons atop the NFC South.
The Bucs head into Sunday night with a big matchup against the Dallas Cowboys, a game that could tell us just how legitimate the Buccaneers are. The Cowboys will be trying to rebound from a loss last week against the New York Giants, but they are still the top seed in the NFC and a Sunday Night Football matchup in Dallas is the Bucs’ biggest test to date.
They started this season as an afterthought. But now three Bucs games in a row have been flexed to better timeslots, and it’s because these guys are looking like contenders and everyone’s starting to notice.
Their turnaround has been pretty simple, but remarkable at the same time.
The defense has been outstanding
One of the main reasons for the Buccaneers’ early struggle was that they really just couldn’t play a lick of defense. This is their first season under new defensive coordinator and former Falcons head coach Mike Smith, and the first few weeks in particular were atrocious. They allowed a league-high 101 points, which included a loss to the Rams.Smith admitted to Sports Illustrated’s Jonathan Jones that he may not have done the best job of coaching early on.
“They’ve done a really good job of working at it throughout the season to get a better understanding of what we’re trying to get accomplished,” Smith said. “A lot of credit goes to the players and their resiliency because we didn’t play well in the first three or four games.”
Since an embarrassing Thursday night loss to Atlanta in Week 9, the Tamps defense has been on top of its game and the main reason for the team’s success. The Bucs have allowed just 12.8 points and given up just six touchdowns. Prior to that, they were giving up 29 points a game. The greatest difference might be in the takeaways. It took them until Week 3 to get one. In their streak, they’ve gotten 14 of them, compared to 11 in their first eight games. When a defense is creating more opportunities for an offense, things usually go well.
“Ever since the little mini-bye, the Thursday night game, Smitty (Smith) and the defensive coaches cut it back a little bit, simplified things, maybe doing a little bit less,” head coach Dirk Koetter told ESPN after beating the Seahawks. "[It] let these guys play faster and they’ve responded."
The defense isn’t doing it alone, though.
Jameis Winston has been better
The first game of the season for the Buccaneers came against the Falcons in Atlanta and made everybody think Winston was going to have a monster sophomore season. He completed nearly 72 percent of his passes, throwing for 281 yards and four touchdowns against just one pick. It was a dominating and masterful performance.In the seven games after that, Winston completed just under 58 percent of his passes, throwing for 13 touchdowns and eight interceptions. The Bucs went 2-5 in that span, and Winston’s slump raised plenty of questions in the Bucs organization.
Since then, Winston’s played much better, but he still hasn’t necessarily been great. In their last five wins, he’s completed nearly 67 percent of his passes, throwing for six touchdowns and three picks. The passing numbers aren’t as prolific as you might expect of a franchise quarterback, but he’s gotten the job done. The extra chances that the defense has given him has undoubtedly been a big help.
He’s found other ways to help his team. Since Week 10, he’s been better on third downs, throwing just one third-down interception and converting them into first downs at a higher rate. Through the first 10 weeks, he completed 44 percent of them. He’s now up to 58. Winston might not be padding the stat sheet we’re used to seeing quarterbacks like Tom Brady and Drew Brees do, but he’s protecting the football and being more accurate.
They still have room to improve, which is scary
Winston is playing like your classic “game manager” right now. He’s getting the Bucs in the end zone when they need to, and he’s not turning the ball over nearly as much. One concern is that he hasn’t been finding Mike Evans with the same consistency as he did through their first eight games.Evans put up eight scores in those games and has had just two since then. But tight end Cameron Brate has emerged, and Doug Martin has finally given them a threat in the backfield, after missing seven games due to injury.
If Winston is able to put things together on offense, the Bucs could be a sensational team, assuming that its stellar defensive unit continues to wreak havoc on opposing offenses.
The Bucs took plenty of heat this season early on. Their decision to fire Lovie Smith last offseason and promote Koetter didn’t immediately pay dividends, but it appears they’ve gotten things right just in time to make a big push into the postseason. Sunday night will be a great barometer of where the Buccaneers stand in the NFC. Even if they come up short, they have two very winnable games against the Saints in New Orleans and against the Panthers at home.
No matter the results moving forward, they’ve put themselves in great position to close out the season.
