Sometimes the end is a mystery. There is conflicting information; the good and the bad are so intertwined that it’s hard to make sense of whether you’re living through hell or the good old days. This is especially true when it comes to both evaluating marriages and cheering for the Buccaneers, a team that has run the cycle between the height of football intelligentsia hyperbole and the sting of end-of-season performances that never quite live up to the idea we have of this team and its potential.
After a 23–20 loss to the Panthers, in a game that dramatically swings both Tampa Bay’s playoff odds and chances of winning the division (though not as badly as it would have affected the Panthers if the Buccaneers had won), the state of the Buccaneers has never been more fraught, despite the franchise’s recent successes. After falling from 6–2 to 7–8, the need for some kind of ending is now more obvious, and less like the shades of gray you encounter in everyday life. Here’s a team that won a Super Bowl in 2020, has since transitioned coaches and quarterbacks, and has finished under .500 once (by just a game). And in that sub-.500 season, the Buccaneers still made the postseason. The Buccaneers have top-10 players in the NFL at—depending on your debate skills—five different positions. The team has been a factory for producing successful head coaches, including Dave Canales, who beat the Buccaneers on Sunday and Liam Coen, who is orchestrating another turnaround of equal measure in Jacksonville.
