Bucs Looking To Get In Groove, Build On Winning

At 8-8, the Bucs are looking to close out their regular season above .500 heading into Week 18 against the Falcons. They will also be looking to stay in the groove they have been in and enter the playoffs winners of their past three games. The team is facing a dilemma common with many playoff teams; do they play their starters and if so, how much?

There are pros and cons of playing and resting them. By playing, the starters stay game-ready and avoid getting rusty. By resting, they get a much-needed breather after a long season and many backups get meaningful reps for the first time since the preseason. When asked how he will approach this, Bucs head coach Todd Bowles mentioned the team plans on playing them at least some, knowing that the team still has more to work on. 

“We can get better at a lot of things, so right now, I’m planning on playing them,” Bowles said. “We’ll see as the week goes forward, but we can get better at a lot of things that we need to work on, and we don’t need to take our foot off the gas.”

If anything has been the case through 16 games, it is that the Bucs need to be better than they have. Their largest margins of victory happened in Weeks 1 and 2; 16 over the Cowboys and 10 over the Saints. Since then, instead of getting into a groove, the team has struggled against easier opponents on paper and barely scrapped by, thanks to the late-game magic of quarterback Tom Brady.

If the team hopes to advance through the month of January, playing their starters and allowing them to build on the momentum of the last two games is key. They cannot afford to take the Falcons lightly, as they have rarely won in convincing fashion throughout 2022. 

The start of 2023 demonstrated they can still put points on the board, but they still only rank 25th at 18.5 per game. That is the lowest of any team that has already clinched a spot in the playoff bracket. The next highest are the Ravens at 20.9, followed by the Chargers at 22.7. Using the same logic of teams locked in prior to Sunday, the Bucs are only 1-4 against playoff teams. The regular season may be coming to a close, but the team can still begin their journey to the Super Bowl hot at the right time. 

Bucs RB White: “We’re Trying To Get In A Groove And Get Going At The Right Time”

A lot of the mention Wednesday at practice was regarding the issue of how much guys will play on Sunday. For Bucs rookie running back Rachaad White, he sees it as the guys still wanting to go out and play and “get going at the right time:”

He added: “I believe staying in the groove is important right now. That’s kind of my mindset, I’m a young guy, but I want to play. I never let coach [Bowles]… it takes a lot for coach to try to sit me down. Especially being young, things like that, I just want to keep going. 

“That’s the big thing, and just seeing your teammates, seeing TB, ‘Yeah,’ everybody wants to play, every snap if they can. It means a lot, just staying in a groove. You go in that bye week, you come back and try to knock that rust off, we’re just trying to get going and keep being positive at the right time and we feel like this is.”

Bucs HC Bowles: “Winning Helps Period”

Bucs WR Mike Evans – Photo by: Cliff Welch/PR

Winning helps a lot of things, including team morale. The Bucs enter Week 18 winners of two straight in encouraging fashion. After not playing his best game against the Cardinals, quarterback Tom Brady still helped lead the team back on Christmas to a 19-16 win. If anything was on display in this game, it was the team’s resilience and resolve to keep fighting.

A week later, the offense started clicking, especially with the Tom Brady-Mike Evans tandem looking more like it should. In the 30-24 win to clinch the NFC South, the team looked more like the contender fans have seen the past couple of seasons.

“It’ll boost morale,” Bowles said of winning Sunday to make it three straight. “Winning helps period, whether it’s playoffs or regular season. You want to win every game you play. Obviously, we had some tough ones we lost, we had some tough ones we won. But winning the last two the way we did, that builds morale more, and you want to go in on a high note.”