The PewterReport.com Roundtable features the opinions of the PR staff as it tackles a topic related to the Tampa Bay Bucs each week.

This week’s topic: What is your New Year’s resolution for the Bucs?

Scott Reynolds: More Accountability
I would be shocked if the Glazers don’t fire head coach Dirk Koetter after another double-digit losing season. So there will be another coach in Tampa Bay next year. Whoever that coach is needs to demand more accountability from his players and coaches going forward. That to me was a big factor in the losing culture at One Buccaneer Place – now known as AdventHealth Training Center.

What we saw all season long was Caleb Benenoch continuing to be a turnstile at right guard. Benenoch has given up 8.5 sacks and seven accepted penalties in his first year as a full-time starter. He was the best that the Bucs could throw out there this year? Rookie Alex Cappa or Adam Liedtke wasn’t worthy of a chance to replace Benenoch? There wasn’t any other option on the street or on another team’s practice squad? Why was mediocrity accepted all season long?

Bucs G Caleb Benenoch – Photo by: Getty Images

Left tackle Donovan Smith has given up 6.5 sacks in 2018 – the most ever in a season for him – in a contract year. Smith got lazy and give up a couple of critical sacks this year, including one at Dallas that led to a fumble and a scoop-and-score. Yet there is no accountability. Smith didn’t get benched for a series – or the rest of the game. There is no consequence for his poor play – or for Benenoch’s – and that falls on offensive line coach and run game coordinator George Warhop, who has done a poor job of developing the offensive line this year.

Brent Grimes had to be talked out of retirement and into playing one more year, and you can tell by the way he’s played that he’s been counting down the days until he’s done with the Buccaneers. In 12 games, Grimes has just three pass breakups and no interceptions. Last year, Grimes had 11 pass breakups and was tied for the team lead with three interceptions. Grimes has given up more plays than he’s made this year by a long shot and the question has to be asked – why has this coaching staff continued to start him, especially down the stretch with the playoffs being long gone by now? Isn’t starting M.J. Stewart or Ryan Smith outside make more sense from a developmental standpoint right now because those players will be in Tampa Bay in 2019?

There has been a sense of entitlement at One Bucs Place this year – and over the last couple of years – that I believe has contributed to continual poor play and helped foster a losing cultural in Tampa Bay. I covered the Tony Dungy and Jon Gruden regimes in their entirety and know what a winning culture and locker room looks like and feels like. It starts with greater accountability. If players need to be benched in-season going forward to either re-light a fire or put them on notice – or simply play better players and give others a shot – then so be it. If coaches need to be fired or demoted in-season going forward to demonstrate accountability – then so be it.

The Glazers need to demand a zero-tolerance policy for losing – whether it’s at the team headquarters or on Sundays at the stadium – in 2019 with whomever they hire to replace Koetter. Losing in general, and losing performances that have contributed to losing seasons have been tolerated too much around here over the last decade and it needs to stop.

Mark Cook: A Home Field Advantage
Scott Reynolds makes a great point, and I totally agree with him on that, but since that is his resolution I will go with wanting Raymond James Stadium to be a home field advantage for the Bucs once again.

Bucs DT Warren Sapp and Tampa Bay’s 2002 defense – Photo by: Getty Images

Reynolds and I were recently discussing with the youngest member of our team, Trevor Sikkema, how Ray Jay used to be a place that opponents knew would be a difficult place to play. Maybe it didn’t rival the old Metrodome in Minneapolis or the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans, but for an open air stadium this place got loud. Really loud. I was telling Sikkema there were times in the late 90’s and 2000’s that standing on the field late in the fourth quarter you couldn’t hear the person next to you because of the crowd noise. When Warren Sapp and Derrick Brooks stepped onto the field nursing a small lead with a couple minutes left on the clock, forget about it, communication was nearly impossible. And if Sapp got home to the quarterback, or Brooks made a stop short of the first down marker on fourth down to seal the game, the noise was deafening.

Sikkema hardly believed us. And most newer Bucs fans would scoff at the memory, but you Bucs fans who have been with this team since the early days can verify, Raymond James could get as loud as any outdoor stadium in the league.

I long for those days. Bucs fans long for those days. Will it happen in 2019? Will we ever see a sold out all eight regular season home slate of games, with very few opposing fans and jerseys in the stands ever again?

The answer is yes. But it will take some wins. And not flirting with 9-7 and the playoffs like the Bucs have a couple of times this decade. It will take some time, but Florida is a football state and Tampa is a football town. Give the fans a reason to show up and make noise and I truly believe they will once again.

Trevor Sikkema: Be Badass
One of my favorite things Bucs head coach Dirk Koetter ever said was when he said he wants the Buccaneers to be known as a badass football team. So far in his three-year tenure, they’ve been anything but, as they are now staring at another possible 5-11 season.

When I listen to Scott and Mark speak of the Bucs of old, yes they talk about the success on the field, but what I’ve learned most of their perspective over the years is when they tell stories of the locker room; what it was like with each personality. Sapp, Brooks, Lynch, Barber, Rice, etc. Each of those players were immensely talented, but from the stories I’ve learned, their attitude was as All-Pro as their talents.

Legendary Bucs DT Warren Sapp & Jon Gruden – Photo by: Getty Images

They didn’t accept losing. They weren’t going to be losers. This wasn’t just about their paycheck or being in the NFL. If they weren’t winning, there were problems.

The current Bucs locker room doesn’t care. I’m sorry. They don’t. They don’t care that they’re 5-11 again or at least, they don’t care enough to change it — they haven’t. They’re going to get paid all the same. No one is pissed off when they lose anymore. They’re just bummed out.

“Oh well.”

Nope.

My New Year’s resolution for this team is to get back to why they played sports in the first place. To not accept losing. To never settle. To be a badass football team.