CBS Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cBut if you look down at it, we weren\u2019t getting blown out,\u201d Egbuka said of the Bucs\u2019 late-season collapse. \u201cWe were losing games by three points, one point here and there. You know you got to find ways to make plays in those critical moments. And I think we just need to do more of that down the stretch. I think we have a very bright future. We have all the pieces that we need to make a deep run in the playoffs and even a Super Bowl.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joe\u2019s main issue with Egbuka\u2019s argument is that the Bucs lost all those games to losing football teams: Saints, Falcons, Panthers and Dolphins. And the Bucs had 10 days rest to prep for that road matchup with Carolina.<\/p>\n
Overall, the Bucs\u2019 record was 6-6 in one-score games last season. In 2024, the Bucs were 3-5 in one-score games. A year earlier in 2022, their record was 3-4. In 2022, the Bucs finished 6-4 in one-score games.<\/p>\n
In a league dominated by close games and signficant parity, Joe\u2019s can\u2019t say losing close games is anything to feel positive about.<\/p>\n
Conversely, Joe would wag a finger at the Bucs fans who bark that the team barely pulled out games early last season.<\/p>\n
Ira Kaufman Talks Mike Evans Reality & Nonsense, Key Questions Next Week For Jason Licht And Todd Bowles, Draft Dreams, And Much More<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Emeka Egbuka Makes Close-Games Argument February 21st, 2026 So the Bucs went winless in December, losing four games…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":767869,"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-767868","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\/116111770048438037","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767868","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=767868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/767869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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