![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Bowleslongsaints.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBucs coach Todd Bowles.<\/p>\n
One reason there was so much hype for the 2025 season was it seemed like the Bucs were finally going to get over the hump and win postseason games.<\/p>\n
And maybe, just maybe, a Super Bowl appearance?<\/p>\n
The Bucs had a veteran-laden offense with a powerful offensive line, stacked receivers and a dangerous tailback returning from a team that should have won its first-round game of the playoffs the season before.<\/p>\n
And if you think about it, the Bucs had a better roster than the team that lost by eight points at Detroit in the second round of the playoffs following the 2023 season.<\/p>\n
Of course, after getting out to a 6-2 mark, the Bucs fully collapse with an 8-9 record.<\/p>\n
So was the talent on the roster overrated? Bucs coach Todd Bowles was asked if the 2025 talent was capable of fighting for a Super Bowl berth.<\/p>\n
Bowles punted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like we had enough talent to win,\u201d Bowles said. \u201cThe mistakes we made weren\u2019t talent-driven; they were more mistake-driven.\u201d<\/p>\n
Win what? A crappy division with a losing record? A wild card game? An NFC title game? Bowles didn\u2019t say.<\/p>\n
Or maybe he was just talking about regular season games? Your guess is as good as Joe\u2019s.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no two ways about this: The Bucs had injuries, so too did San Francisco, which played in a significantly better division. The 49ers found a way to make the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Simply put, the coaches let this team down. There\u2019s no way one can objectively say the team was coached up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Todd Bowles Dodges Talent Question January 6th, 2026 Bucs coach Todd Bowles. One reason there was so much…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2077],"tags":[211,2599,2598,7,6,704,250,2597,2596],"class_list":{"0":"post-659869","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","8":"tag-buccaneers","9":"tag-bucs-message-boards","10":"tag-bucs-news","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-tampa-bay","14":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","15":"tag-tampabay","16":"tag-tampabaybuccaneers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115851248653945019","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}