By Robert Mills
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will open their first pre-season game on Saturday at 7:30 pm against the Bengals. Coming off their 2020 super bowl winning campaign, it is safe to say there will be a lot of eyes on this game. But what are some things that could affect them coming into this year? Let’s break it down a bit. Returning starters, that was a huge factor coming into the 2021 season. Typically, teams tend to lose starters after winning a Super Bowl due to salary caps and other factors. But what a better winning recipe than being the first team in the super bowl era to resign all 22 of their starters. Though we probably won’t see many of them for pre-season, it’s still essential to note. What does this mean for the rest of the league? Well, in 2020, the Buccaneers had one of the top-rated defenses. They were 5th in total yards allowed (327 ypg) and 8th in total points allowed (22.2 ppg).
These stats only continued to improve headed into the postseason; if you compare the yards per game and points per game to the regular season, they kept right on par, averaging 347 ypg and only allowing 19.5 ppg, which included holding the number 1 rated offense in 2020 in Kansas City to only 9 points in the super bowl. We all knew that players like Vita Vea and Shaquil Barrett would be impactful, but the defense just seemed to get better as the season progressed. And the offense is the same story.
The chemistry between Tom Brady, Mike Evans, and Chris Godwin only seemed to have improved as the 2020 season progressed, and every team in the NFL will be on high alert if this dynamic trio will be firing on all cylinders again. And to make things harder, the Buccaneers offensive line finished 2020 ranked in the top 5 for overall O-lines. Brady was only pressured on 24% of his dropbacks which is the 4th best in the NFL. So defenses will have their hands complete if they expect to get to Brady.
Though, this is now history, as we need to move on to the 2021 season. With Tom Brady having just signed a one-year contract extension through the 2022 season, it’s safe to say he will be running the helm. And as mentioned before, we can fully expect those starters to be the week in and week out, guys. However, one important transaction in the offseason was the acquisition of Kyle Trask (Rd 2, pick 24) from the University of Florida. Signing Trask was one of the smarter choices made as this will allow him a chance to work with Tom and develop and show that this team is trying to be contenders in the future. Their other top pick was Joe Tyron (Rd 1, pick 32) from Washington. He is already showing out in camp. Could he be the next Shaq Barrett? And if so, could we be talking about a rookie DPOY candidate? It might be a little early to talk about that, but from what we hear from Bruce Arians (HC), he is “a hard guy to block.”
So wrapping up everything with a nice bow, it’s safe to say I fully expect another super bowl run by the Buccaneers. If you had the right recipe last year and are using the same recipe again this year, why should we expect less? The NFC South will be “weaker” this year (depending on who you talk to) with Drew Brees retiring, which makes their most challenging opponent in the NFC South (New Orleans Saints) much more manageable. And the Buccaneers have the 4th easiest strength of schedule (SOS) according to opponents win percentage of 2020. The 4th easiest SOS and the Buccaneers had the 3rd best offense (PPG) in 2020 with all starters returning? It sounds like 2021 should be rather fun for Buccaneers fans.
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