- The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are often overlooked as Super Bowl contenders despite winning four straight NFC South titles.
- General Manager Jason Licht and players like Mike Evans embrace an underdog mentality, fueled by a perceived lack of respect.
- The team returns key offensive players, including quarterback Baker Mayfield, who had a career year in 2024.
Quick. Raise your hand if you see the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as a Super Bowl contender.
I didn’t think you’d go there.
No, Tom Brady isn’t coming out of retirement again. If the Bucs are going to make a legitimate run at another championship, it’ll happen with Baker Mayfield having another career year. With Mike Evans and Lavonte David. With Vita Vea, Tristin Wirfs and Bucky Irving. With low-key coach Todd Bowles flanked by underrated GM Jason Licht.
Not convinced?
Understood. There’s a healthy, worthy discussion going on about the Eagles maybe repeating as Super Bowl champs. The Lions gagged in their last two playoff exits, so perhaps it’s Amon-Ra’s time. If, with all due respect, Micah Parsons doesn’t morph into the second coming of Reggie White and lead the Packers to the promised land.
In the NFC field, there’s noise about the Commanders and a 49ers revival, too.
But the Bucs? They’ve got 30-to-1 odds to make it to Santa Clara for Super Bowl 60.
Never mind that Tampa Bay has won four consecutive NFC South titles and with the best five-year stretch in franchise history, is the only team in the NFC to make the playoffs in each of the past five seasons. Usually, that’s a track record that leaves a team poised to take the next step. Until it’s not.
“We’re in witness protection,” Licht told USA TODAY Sports before a training camp practice. “Nobody cares. We’re down here in Tampa. Nobody realizes that we’ve quietly built – Todd, myself, our staffs – a really good team.”
In some ways, like when it’s convenient, they can roll with a Rodney Dangerfield complex and grumble about a lack of respect.
“It’s the market,” said Evans, the Hall of Fame-credentialed receiver who was Licht’s first draft pick for the Bucs in 2014, standing in a hallway at One Buc Place. ‘But it don’t matter.”
Until it can be used to make a point. Are they underdogs again?
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“I hope so,” Licht replied. “Our quarterback likes a chip on his shoulder. Our GM likes a chip on his shoulder. We all like a chip on our shoulder. Seems like everybody wants the Falcons and the Panthers…”
Licht stopped himself right there. But he knows. There’s buzz about division-rival Carolina (5-12 in ’24) progressing with young quarterback Bryce Young. Atlanta, meanwhile, is loaded with weapons around its young quarterback, Michael Penix Jr., and used its two first-round picks in the NFL draft to address its weak pass rush.
Then again, there was talk about the Falcons (8-9 in ’24) overtaking the Bucs last year behind new quarterback Kirk Cousins. The Bucs won with division by two games with a 10-7 record but something was just a bit off as they were swept by Atlanta as Cousins passed for a combined 8 TDs in the two contests and threw for a career-high 509 yards in Week 5.
That sets up an intriguing subplot for the regular-season opener at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Cousins was benched last season as the Falcons faded after a 6-2 start, but he sure lit up the Bucs.
“If we played Tampa Bay every week last year, he’d be in the Hall of Fame now,” Falcons owner Arthur Blank quipped during the NFL owners meetings in March.
Ouch. As if the Bucs need any bulletin-board material.
Typically, Bowles, prompted from defensive coordinator in succeeding the retired Bruce Arians in 2022, smiled and shrugged when presented with the chance to claim a headline with some bold statement about disrespect. Jimmy Johnson, he is not. Denny Green, hardly. And he won’t be compared with the Tuna
“We feel like we should win every ballgame and we don’t really care who we play,” Bowles told USA TODAY Sports after a camp practice.
This optimism has substance. The Bucs had the only offense in the NFL last season to rank in the top five in rushing (fourth) and passing (third) and were the first team in NFL history (est. 1920) to complete 70% of its passes while averaging 5 yards per carry. All the key contributors return, including Evans (who shares an NFL record with Jerry Rice with 11 consecutive 1,000-yard seasons) and Mayfield, who in 2024 posted career highs for passing yards (4,500) and TDs (41) and set the franchise mark with a 106.8 passer rating.
Bowles’ defense, meanwhile, has impact players at every level, including Vea, the nose tackle, David, a 14th-year linebacker, and safety Antoine Winfield, Jr. And it will be interesting to see whether Haason Reddick regains the form that allowed him to post 50 ½ sacks over a four-year span beginning in 2020, when he compiled double-digit sacks for four consecutive seasons.
After Brady retired in 2023, having led the Bucs to a Super Bowl 55 crown that capped the 2020 campaign, it seemed natural to expect a drop-off. After all, they won the division in Brady’s final season in 2022 with a losing record (8-9), then was blown out at home – by the Cowboys, of all unlikely teams – in the NFC playoff opener was Brady’s last game. There was no viable succession plan at quarterback. And after breaking the salary cap bank in chasing championships with TB12, they were cap-dry. Enter Mayfield, to go with shrewd cap management (take a bow, cap guru Jackie Davidson) and the typically deft draft stockpiles provided by Licht & Co.
“I thought we would still be a team that competed,” Evans told USA TODAY Sports, reflecting on Brady’s departure. “Obviously, we needed to figure out the quarterback situation. Luckily, Baker was available. I knew that if I played with Baker, we would get the respect that he deserves. Because quarterbacks need good skilled players and a good offensive line.”
Evans points to another factor, too. Culture.
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“I think it’s everything,” he said. “The front office. The coaching staff. The veteran leadership is really top tier. It’s way better than it was earlier in my career. Not trying to knock my guys back then, but…we’re all about playing for each other.”
Mayfield: “I think it starts with the two franchise guys, Mike Evans and Lavonte David, that have been criminally underrated for a long time. They just work their tails off and lead the way. I think everybody kind of follows that.”
Still, championship DNA or not, nobody’s picking the Bucs to get to the Super Bowl. I mean, according to USA TODAY Sports soothsayer Nate Davis, the ceiling for Bowles’ team is a 9-8 finish that’s good enough to win the weak NFC South again and claim the No. 4 seed in the NFC playoffs.
“We make our own projections and predictions,” Bowles said, maybe tapping his inner Nate vibe. “And our projection is to try to win the division and try to win the Super Bowl. Whatever else everybody has to say, if we listen to that, we’d be in last (place) every year. So, we don’t, and we’ve been in first every year.
“That’s how we treat it. At this point, it’s kind of a running joke, so we don’t care.”
Which leaves the Bucs flying under the radar as a team that just might emerge as a legit championship contender. In other words, Shh!
Contact Jarrett Bell at jbell@usatoday.com or follow on social media: On X: @JarrettBell
On Bluesky: jarrettbell.bsky.social