Coaches Mark Duffner and Dirk Koetter, and DT Gerald McCoy speaking, along with Desean Jackson’s return to practice highlighted the media availability at One Buc Place on Thursday as Tampa Bay prepares for their road matchup against the Dallas Cowboys this Sunday.

One topic at the forefront of conversation was the NFC’s Pro Bowl roster that was released on Tuesday, which didn’t include any Buccaneers. DT Gerald McCoy saw his streak of six consecutive Pro Bowl appearances broken while DE Jason Pierre-Paul and WR Mike Evans were named as Pro Bowl alternates. While they weren’t voted to the Pro Bowl, Evans’ 1,328 receiving yards is a career-high and currently puts him second in the league behind just Julio Jones and Pierre-Paul’s 11.5 sacks leave him tied for 12^th in the league.

With the Buccaneers now officially eliminated from playoff contention – for the 11^th consecutive season – the question that resonated throughout the building was how to stay motivated and give 100% through these final two games when you have nothing, as a team, to fight for.

The players largely mirrored Duffner’s sentiments, looking to professionalism, momentum and pride as things that push them through the end of the season

Ali Marpet looked at the situation as frustrating more than anything. Marpet commented on his belief that there is playoff-caliber talent in the Bucs’ locker room and that it’s “extremely frustrating” to not be there.

It was the first time in a few week’s that head coach Dirk Koetter had DeSean Jackson available at practice. In that time, the Bucs have had a fewer amount of explosive plays, as Jackson is the one who stretches the defense. Koetter spoke on having Jackson back out there with the team.

Koetter gets a vote for the Pro Bowl, but even he admits that maybe he isn’t qualified to vote because he doesn’t get a look at every player. No team wants to end up with not having a player selected to the Pro Bowl, but Koetter understands that there’s a lot of deserving players in this league, and that the voting divided into thirds as a system is what it is.

Stay tuned for what else may happen on Thursday.