By: Andy Davies

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have endured a torrid start to the 2022 NFL season.

Not one person, whether they are members of the media or just your regular fan down the street, would have predicted the Buccaneers to start the season 3-5.

Shock losses to the Pittsburgh Steelers and Carolina Panthers, who both had one win prior to beating the Buccaneers, were then followed by a loss at home to the Baltimore Ravens.

This is the first time in Tom Brady’s career that he has lost three games in a row. With a division that appears wide open, there is every chance that the Buccaneers end up making the playoffs and all is well again. However, there is also the possibility that a team that has won a Super Bowl and narrowly lost in the Divisional Round during the last season, could miss the playoffs entirely this season. Here are three reasons why this could happen.

A Tough Schedule

It does not get any easier for Brady and the Bucs when looking at their schedule. Their next game is against current Super Bowl champions, the Los Angeles Rams. Whilst they are also coming off the back of a loss and have a 3-4 record, this is not exactly a game that head coach Todd Bowles will want even with an extra few days’ rest. 

After the Rams game, they face the 5-3 Seattle Seahawks in the first ever regular season game to be played in Germany. They will not want to play a team in form, let alone in a neutral venue with jetlag. 

After their Week Eleven bye, the rest of their schedule features games against the Cleveland Browns, New Orleans Saints, San Francisco 49ers, Cincinnati Bengals, Arizona Cardinals, Carolina Panthers, and Atlanta Falcons. 

This is not an easy ride, so expect the Bucs to be challenged right the way until the end. 

With four teams ahead of them in the race for the Wildcard spots, and two of those with three more wins, the Bucs better turn things around quickly, otherwise they will be watching the playoffs from their living rooms. 

Tom Brady’s Personal Life

Brady’s personal life has been the subject of much media coverage of late, with Brady addressing the rumours on Instagram, confirming their divorce. 

This is bound to have played some part in Brady’s slump in form. 

Lack Of Protection And Receiving Help

Brady lost his good friend Rob Gronkowski and the drama of Antonio Brown meant that Tampa Bay went from four elite pass catchers to just two. 

Mike Evans has still been excellent as ever, if you exclude the dropped catch against the Panthers, ranked as having the eighth-most receiving yards (577) and Godwin (368) has done well considering the comeback from injury. Running back Leonard Fournette (273) is their next best receiver, which shows the issues at hand. 

Russell Gage and Julio Jones both came in during the offseason in attempts to give Brady as much help as possible, but Gage has just 231 receiving yards and Jones has been non-existent with just 97 yards from 11 targets and six receptions. Cole Beasley came and went in the space of a couple of weeks.

Whilst Brady is second in the league for passing yards, he is tied for 17^th in passing touchdowns. This shows the struggles Brady and the team have had in getting it down the end zone. According to FantasyPros.com, Brady is eighth in the league for passing yards in the red zone and eleventh for passing touchdowns. This also shows the issues Brady has had, a lot like Aaron Rodgers this season, with receiver help.

Brady has already been sacked thirteen times this year, which means he is projected to finish the season with just under 30 sacks. This would be the eighth-highest total of his career. To put it in perspective, he was sacked ten times at this stage in 2020, and twelve times at this point last season. The loss of Ali Marpet to retirement has been huge, even with the addition of former teammate Shaq Mason. Ryan Jenson’s injury has had a big impact also, with Robert Hainsey and Luke Goeseke seemingly failing to deliver in their absence.

There is still plenty of time to go, but the Buccaneers certainly have cause for concern at this present time.

The post Three reasons why the Buccaneers could miss the playoffs appeared first on Pro Football Mania.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have had arguably one of the best receiving cores in the NFL as of late.  They have also added to it this offseason during the draft, taking Jaelon Darden with the 129^th pick.  They also re-signed Antonio Brown, and franchise tagged Chris Godwin, bringing their four top receivers back for another season.  

In this article, I will be predicting the stats of the Bucs top three receivers who should all get touches, those being:

• Mike Evans
• Chris Godwin
• Antonio Brown

Each of these receivers brings a different skillset to the team, and should each have pretty varying levels of different receiving stats.  With that said, here are my predictions”¦

Mike Evans

Statline: 123 receptions on 76 targets (61.8% catch rate), 1208 receiving yards, 10 TDs

Mike Evans had a relatively down year in 2020 by his standards, likely because of all the new weapons brought in.  However, with Tom Brady continuing to age, it is apparent that his arm fell off a little bit last year in terms of the deep ball.  With this in mind, Evans should have a “comeback” year of sorts in 2021, continuing his streak of 1000 yard seasons through his whole career.

The reason Brady factors into this is because Evans tends to run the short-intermediate routes, while Antonio Brown will run the deep slot routes most of the time.  This precise route running from Evans should allow him to be Brady’s favorite target this season, as it will make his job exceptionally easy.

Chris Godwin

Statline: 68 receptions on 89 targets (76.4% catch rate), 895 receiving yards, 8 TDs

Chris Godwin has mostly had the lesser of the two stat lines out of this duo, and I do not think that will change unless Evans has a severe drop off in production.  With that said, he still sees a slight increase from 2020 as he likely will play one more game than last year at the least (played in 12 last season).  

This increase likely will not cut into the other receivers on the team, as like I mentioned this is purely due to an increase in games played not number of targets per game.  At only 25 years old this season though, he should be looking to make an entry for the WR1 conversation on the team.

Since he would be going against the 2^nd best CBs in the teams he plays, his coverage would be slightly sparse compared to Evans.  If they can draw coverage off of eachother and try to “pick and roll” per-say, that would give them a huge advantage on the field for sure.  

Antonio Brown

Statline: 60 receptions on 82 targets (73.2% catch rate), 795 receiving yards, 8 TDs

Another player who will benefit from more games played is the addition from last season, Antonio Brown.  My guess is he will likely start 10-12 games of the 17 this season, which is why he has such a drastic improvement in this statline compared to last season.  His primary focus as a receiver is turning YAC and getting to the endzone if he can rip a gap open.

The low-ish receiving yards compared to the other two receivers is due to just lack of volume, sharing between three primary receivers is absolutely difficult to do, even for someone like Tom Brady.  There is only so many receptions that can be given out per game, and the focus of the offense is heavily reliant upon Godwin and Evans, so this deteriorates the touches of everyone else.  

With that said, since he would likely be going up against the CB3 of each team he plays, this would still allow him to produce no doubt.  When the duo ahead of him is getting a lot of the focus, he can get to the seam and rip off long plays.  

The post Projecting the prominent Buccaneers WRs stat lines in 2021 appeared first on Pro Football Mania.

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are arguably the most invested “win now” NFL team in the league.

It was clear with the move to acquire six, seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady last offseason. Bruce Arians followed up the addition of Brady with a trade for his pal, Rob Gronkowski. After Gronk came Leonard Fournette… then to cap it off, former Patriot Antonio Brown became a Buccaneer.

In the midst of the 2021 offseason, there may be different weapons for TB12 headed into the new 2021 season, but the Lombardi aspirations will be the same. So, who could join the Tompa Bay arsenal? Let’s get into the details.

Odell Beckham Jr.

Reports have surfaced of Tom Brady being interested in obtaining Beckham Jr. from the Browns. According to Adam Shefter, it would still be challenging for the Buccaneers to acquire the Browns gifted WR.

We’ve seen Rodgers Brady often get his wishes of player additions. Gronk was acquired in a trade from New England, while it was well known that Brady wanted AB for quite some time — which resulted in signing AB.

If the Browns were to trade for OBJ, there would be a nail in the coffin for AB returning. If the team wanted to keep Chris Godwin (who could be better), they would likely have to lose a key defender from returning. Coach Arians will have to decide if it’s worth adding a player like OBJ but losing Lavonte David or Shaq Barrett.

The Buccaneers defensive front was key in shutting down Patrick Mahomes and unraveling one of his career low performances. Mahomes ousted a 52.3 passer rating, averaged 5.5 YPC, and was sacked three times.

Stephon Gilmore

It may be an unlikely look for Bill Belichick to trade Stephon Gilmore to the Brady bunch after they won the Super Bowl, but it would be the perfect fit. It’s almost a guarantee that Belichick sends Gilmore out of Massachusetts.

The former DPOY could help the Buccaneers where one of the few weak links lies: cornerback. When the 2020 playoffs Buccaneers defense didn’t play lights out and Devin White didn’t look like the best LB in the league, their secondary often got exposed. In particular, the annual NFC South foes got the best of the Bucs secondary.

The Saints swept the Buccaneers in the regular season at the expense of the Saints passing game crippling the Bucs young cornerbacks. And the Falcons nearly edged out the Bucs in the second matchup, but their own secondary fell harder.

If the Bucs had to give up a player in the front seven to obtain Gilmore, it may be worth it more for Gilmore — opposed for a risky WR.

Michael Gallup

If the Buccaneers very well look to load up on weapons and if OBJ isn’t in play, they should strongly consider Michael Gallup. There’s been a lot of buzz around the Dallas Cowboys shopping Gallup, or Jaylon Smith. Even if Prescott has agreed to a contract extension, they are very tight against the cap amid a team that’s looking to rebuild on defense.

Gallup is only 25 years old and his last two seasons exceed the production of Beckham Jr. Not only has Gallup been more electric than the Browns wideout, but Gallup comes at a much better price than OBJ.

Gallup still has a year left on his rookie deal, while OBJ is under contract until 2023 — from his five year, 90 million dollar deal in 2019. If the OBJ experiment doesn’t work in Tampa, they have to deal with a financial mess. And if Gallup doesn’t blow the roof off defenses, they can just let him hit free agency next offseason.

The post 3 WIN NOW Trades For Buccaneers: OBJ Tops The List appeared first on Pro Football Mania.