Taking a look at the state of the Bucs, as they head into their Week 6 bye

Taking Stock of Tampa Bay Buccaneers Ahead of Week 6 ByeBy Luke Easterling Oct 14, 2015Chris O'Meara/Associated Press Sitting at 2-3 and coming off their first home win since 2013, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers head into the bye week having already matched their win total from last season.There have been plenty of bright spots already for the Bucs. Doug Martin looks like his Pro Bowl self from 2012 again, sack numbers are up thanks to a young and improving front four and the kicking game has been shored up by a familiar face.But there are still plenty of areas that need work. The back seven is still struggling mightily in pass defense, penalties and mental errors continue to cost them in key moments and consistency across the board needs to improve.Throw in a rookie quarterback still trying to find his sea legs, and you have a Tampa Bay team still trudging through the process of self-discovery. The schedule only gets tougher from here, so they'll have to figure things out quickly down the stretch.Let's take a look at the state of the Bucs as they head into their Week 6 bye.Winston's Roller-Coaster Season Trending UpRob Foldy/Getty Images As should have been expected from a rookie quarterback starting from day one in the NFL, Jameis Winston's first five games have seen plenty of good, bad and ugly.Winston has thrown seven touchdowns and seven interceptions, rushed for a score, is averaging just over 200 yards passing per game and has a quarterback rating of 77.6.Head coach Lovie Smith acknowledged that Winston will continue to improve with experience, via Andrew Astleford of ESPN.com: "He is growing. Experience teaches you everything, though. I mean, you can talk, talk, talk about it. But you have to get in that situation. And I talked last week about sticking your hand in the fire a little bit and seeing what it does to you."Winston threw two costly picks in his NFL debut but bounced back with a pair of solid performances in the following weeks. After a disastrous Week 4 performance that saw him throw four interceptions, he responded again with a nearly mistake-free outing last week.Nobody should be surprised that Winston is taking chances down the field and paying the price for them sometimes, but he's also showing the important quality of being able to quickly move on from a bad game and get the job done the following week.He should get more comfortable as the season wears on, and the offense will benefit greatly from it.Secondary Still Needs Plenty of WorkBrian Blanco/Associated Press The Bucs have seen some improvements on defense in their second year under Smith, but the secondary is still struggling.Last week, Tampa Bay gave up over 300 yards and four touchdown passes to Blake Bortles and a Jacksonville Jaguars team that was only averaging just over 15 points per game. After the game, Smith made it clear he wasn't too thrilled with the way his defensive backfield has been performing, via Roy Cummings of the Tampa Tribune:We haven’t played well enough back there. Not pleased at all. We’ve had opportunities to take the ball away, and a game like we had (Sunday), to finish on a note like that was discouraging.We’re not where we need to be on the back end right now. Like I said, I didn’t like the way we finished that game. It was a shame we finished that way. But that’s more on a few individual guys than anything else.A quick look at the stat sheet may be deceiving, as the Bucs currently rank sixth in the NFL in pass defense, giving up just over 202 yards per game. But they've also given up 12 touchdown passes—31st in the NFL—and an overall opposing quarterback rating of 106.4, which ranks 29th in the league. The team also has just three total interceptions so far this season.The bend-don't-break philosophy of the Tampa 2 only works when the defense cracks down in the red zone and forces field goals. So far, Tampa Bay's secondary is allowing far too many easy touchdowns and will need to make great strides coming out of the bye week if the team wants to be competitive down the stretch.Lovie Gets Elusive Home Win, but Rough Seas AheadJonathan Dyer-USA TODAY Sports Last week's win over the Jacksonville Jaguars marked Tampa Bay's first home win under Smith, ending an overall drought that had lasted since late in the 2013 season.Smith was thrilled to end the streak but made it clear after the game that he's focused on making sure the team continues to improve, via Matt Stein of Sports Talk Florida: "It was good to see the football team win, to be able to celebrate a victory afterwards. When you talk about making progress, you have to get that W. So, to go into the bye week [and] start the second quarter off the right way with a win yesterday [was] big for us."Smith is wise not to dwell too much on last week's victory, as the schedule only gets tougher for the Bucs over the next handful of weeks. They'll come out of the bye week to face the Washington Redskins and undefeated Atlanta Falcons on the road before coming back home to take on the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys. After that, it's the Philadelphia Eagles, Indianapolis Colts and the Falcons again before things ease up a bit at the end of the year.The Bucs definitely have plenty of positives to be encouraged about, but their only two wins so far have come against a pair of 1-4 teams. Their pass defense has been awful, and they've yet to face the likes of Andrew Luck, Eli Manning and Matt Ryan twice.Things are slowly moving in the right direction for Smith and his Pewter Pirates, but things will get harder before they get easier over this next stretch of games.Barth Bringing Much-Needed Stability Back to Kicking GameCliff McBride/Getty Images After Kyle Brindza cost the Bucs 17 points on missed kicks over a two-game stretch, the team brought back a familiar face to take over the kicking job.Connor Barth made his return to Tampa a memorable one last week, nailing three field goals and three extra points and silencing doubters of his ability to boom kickoffs, forcing touchbacks of five of his eight attempts.Smith was understandably thrilled by Barth's performance, according to Scott Smith of Buccaneers.com:It was exciting to watch, to say the least, to put it mildly. You know, last week [the media] reminded me forever, 'Lovie, okay, you guys are going to have to cover this week. Connor is going to hit it to about the 20-yard line every [kickoff].' That wasn’t the case. He really did a great job kicking off and of course he was perfect [on placekicks]. What a homecoming, a welcome back and all that. There’s a lot on the kicker, to perform when his number is called. He stepped up to the plate big-time.Barth has a proven track record of accuracy and consistency over the past few years, which is exactly what the Bucs need after struggling through the first few weeks with Brindza.Tampa Bay needs to turn red-zone trips into touchdowns more often, but they'll be far more at ease moving forward with the knowledge that Barth should give them automatic points if they're not able to punch it in.Doug Martin Back to Pro Bowl FormTroy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports After shedding 20 pounds in the offseason, Doug Martin looked like a brand-new man throughout training camp and the preseason, showing off improved quickness and explosiveness. So far, he's gotten even better through the first five games of the regular season.Martin had his best game of the year last week, racking up 158 total yards and three touchdowns, proving he's back to the form that earned him a Pro Bowl berth after tallying nearly 2,000 total yards in his rookie season."When I go into a game, I just think about if I do my job and play hard, then everything else will fall into place," Martin said after Sunday's game, via Andrew Astleford of ESPN.com. "I find a way to do my job and just keep on punching, and something, eventually, is going to pop."The former first-round pick is currently tied for second in the NFL with 405 rushing yards, many of which have come after contact. He's in a contract year—the Bucs announced in the offseason that they wouldn't be picking up his fifth-year option—and is proving he's worth a lucrative extension.Pass Rush Improving, but Consistency Still MissingWesley Hitt/Getty ImagesThrough five games, the Bucs have posted 15 sacks, which is tied for sixth in the NFL. After managing just 36 sacks all last season, Tampa Bay is on pace for 48 this year, which would have ranked third in the league last year.Smith credits the emergence of young talent and changing up their roster decisions on game day with their surge in sack numbers so far this year, but he also knows there's still improvement to be made, according to Scott Smith of Buccaneers.com:I'm pleased in general [but] we left a little bit out on the field yesterday. That’s what Joe [Cullen] and Paul [Spicer] will say, but you have to be pleased when you see young players like ‘Jacq’ [Jacquies Smith] coming around, Will Gholston moving into a more prominent role, Howard Jones.We kind of changed it up a little bit, started dressing eight defensive linemen instead of seven and letting everybody have an opportunity to play. You get that competition on who gets back there [to the quarterback] the quickest. It’s just not that. You take away the quarterback run yesterday and we did a fairly good job against the run too. Of course the defensive line and the linebackers – along with the secondary – had a lot to do with that too.Tampa Bay's overall numbers are encouraging in the sack department, but consistency is still missing. Ten of their 15 sacks have come in their two wins, which were against opponents with a combined record of 2-8.They'll be facing much better quarterbacks and offensive line units over the next stretch of the schedule, so the defensive line will have to take its game up another level to keep putting up these kinds of numbers.link