TAMPA, Fla. – As bad as the Bucs have played and as crazy as it sounds, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are still in the race to win the NFC South at 4-7.
To top it off, the Bucs face a 1-10 Carolina Panthers team, whose owner, David Tepper, fired his head coach and several assistants.
“I think it’s huge if we want to win the division, and it starts with them (Carolina) this week,” Bucs left tackle Tristan Wirfs said. “It’s really huge.”
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It’s too late in the season other than to fire coaches to change the offensive and defensive systems of any team. Bucs head coach Todd Bowles thinks the Panthers will come to Raymond James Sunday with a similar game plan they’ve used all year.
“You can’t revamp your team in one week,” Bowles said. I’m sure they’ll tweak some things, but we’ve got to worry about the things we can correct ourselves and go out and play them and see what happens.”
Bucs quarterback Baker Mayfield has sounded like a broken record the last couple of weeks, saying the offense is close and “everyone just needs to be on the same page.”
“We have to win these division games to get to where we want to go,” Mayfield said. “It’s a sense of urgency.”
The Bucs have lost six of their last seven games but are facing a 1-10 Carolina Panthers team that is in disarray. Bucs star wide receiver Mike Evans says teams that play the first game under an interim coach can get fired up. The Bucs cannot take the lowly Panthers lightly.
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“I mean, you see it in college, the NFL is different, but you’ve seen it a lot this year in college,” Evans said. “An interim coach steps in or another coach steps in, and it’s a different type of energy. So they don’t have anything to lose.”
Bucs fans are up in arms with a lot calling for a change at head coach. The Glazers, who own the Bucs, have never fired a head coach within less than two years.
With a long shot, but still a chance at the postseason, it looks like, at least for now, the Bucs will be staying with Bowles. A loss to the Panthers could pretty much knock the Bucs out of the race, and then things could get ugly. But all the players and coaches are thinking right now to beat the Panthers on Sunday.
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