Who Are The Quitters?
November 29th, 2025
Tampa Bay’s remaining opponents have a combined record of 25-43 this season.
That’s great news for the Bucs’ playoff hopes, and for a phenomenon articulated by Bucco Bruce Arians that is sure to affect the team soon, maybe as early as tomorrow.
That’s the NFL reality of bad teams having players effectively quitting on the season. Dudes check out mentally and make business decisions in games to stay healthy. It’s certainly not every player, but it definitely happens on bad teams.
And it especially happens on a club whose head coach is on thin ice, like Arizona’s Jonathan Gannon. His Cardinals face the Bucs tomorrow.
Arians visited the Barstool Gambling show last year and listened to host and former NFL linebacker Will Compton, the retired linebacker, reference how he had been a part of bad teams and saw players spending far too much time focused on postseason vacation plans instead of football. Arians eagerly jumped in and said, “They’re checking out at Thanksgiving.”
Joe saw evidence of this during The Lost Decade of Buccaneers football (2009-2018).
A former Bucs assistant coach once told Joe privately that many assistant coaches are glued to media late in a bad season because they’re concerned about their job security jobs — in addition to exploring potential opportunities with new teams.
That can be a problem, he said. Coaches also get distracted when a team is circling the drain.
A fan or even a general observer could say the Bucs mailed it in Sunday night when too many players quit against the Rams. Joe painfully is forced to acknowledge that point. However, Joe could also say it wasn’t Thanksgiving yet and the Bucs’ three game homestand, which starts tomorrow, will answer nearly all questions about the team.