{"id":755827,"date":"2026-02-16T11:31:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T11:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/755827\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T11:31:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T11:31:16","slug":"a-complete-collapse-joebucsfan-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/755827\/","title":{"rendered":"A Complete Collapse – JoeBucsFan.com"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Talkin\u2019 Bucs.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one thing for Joe to bang on a keyboard about the Bucs\u2019 problems in 2025. It\u2019s also another thing for Joe to hop on a podcast and holler.<\/p>\n

But what about a guy who has many decades working in the NFL?<\/p>\n

Former Bucs scout, Jets linebackers coach and player personnel director Pat Kirwan summarized what he thought happened with the Bucs last season.<\/p>\n

In short, it was a complete collapse from all corners, Kirwan noted on \u201cMovin\u2019 the Chains\u201d last week, heard exclusively on SiriusXM NFL Radio. No, it wasn\u2019t just one thing, but Kirwan seemed a bit troubled that Bucs coach Todd Bowles had so many problems with his defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn offense, they [ranked] 21st, which is below mediocre,\u201d Kirwan began.\u00a0\u201cTheir defense finished 19th, which was their signature. You got a defensive-minded head coach, so that thing fell apart.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what jumped out to Kirwan? Weirdly, he said the return of Mike Evans appeared to mess up the Bucs offense.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, they didn\u2019t have the ability to adjust to when Mike Evans was there,\u201d Kirwan said.<\/p>\n

Now on face value that seems preposterous. A Hall of Fame receiver returns and the offense cannot take advantage? But how many times have you read or heard other NFL talking heads say they couldn\u2019t figure out how the Bucs got healthy on offense late last season but got worse?<\/p>\n

So in a sick way, Kirwan might be onto something.<\/p>\n

Playing Mayfield when he was hurt did the Bucs offense no favors, Kirwan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the quarterback took a beating,\u201d Kirwan said of Baker Mayfield. \u201cHe was playing way less than 100 percent on a number of occasions because he\u2019s too tough. He just keeps going. But you could see he wasn\u2019t the same guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

On defense, Kirwan said not having a legit edge rusher was worse than most think.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought they were very good at scheduling blitzes,\u201d Kirwan began. \u201cAnd then after a while, people were on to that. \u2018Hey, they can\u2019t really rush. They\u2019ve got to blitz.\u2019 And [opposing offenses] started dealing with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blitzing is awesome so long as the blitzer gets home. That didn\u2019t happen near enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Talkin\u2019 Bucs. It\u2019s one thing for Joe to bang on a keyboard about the Bucs\u2019 problems in 2025.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":755828,"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-755827","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":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755827","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=755827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}