![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/bowles-1215.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nAnnual toe-stubbing.<\/p>\n
Todd Bowles is still searching. And he has yet to find an answer.<\/p>\n
In the past three seasons, the Bucs have had a four-game losing streak. The first two seasons came midseason. Last year it was in the second half of the season.<\/p>\n
In Bowles\u2019 first season as head coach, with Tom Brady guiding the pirate ship, the Bucs never had a four-game losing streak, but they did lose five of six games early in the season.<\/p>\n
So, what the hell is going on? Are Bowles\u2019 players getting too confident after a few wins and think they can just show up, roll out a football and win? Do teams adjust to whatever the Bucs are doing and are slow to adjust? It\u2019s a mystery Bowles has confessed he does not know the answer to.<\/p>\n
But, Bowles said, blame him.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan\u2019t pinpoint why it has been happening but I know it has been happening,\u201d Bowles said. \u201cWe lost some very tough games last year, especially toward the end of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were in every one of them. I\u2019m not going to blame it on injuries or anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
To the best of Bowles\u2019 knowledge, Bowles is pretty confident that how the Bucs finish games is the difference in winning or losing. He sort of wagged a finger at Joe for suggesting the Bucs may have been the hottest team in the league after beating Houston and Seattle on the road and San Francisco at home.<\/p>\n
Bowles told Joe the Bucs were winning those games because of the way they closed out games and that did not happen in November and December.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to find a way to finish games and that\u2019s on me and everybody else [with the Bucs],\u201d Bowles said. \u201cWe are all disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n
How does Bowles accomplish this? Hold back special plays until the fourth quarter? Have longer practices to develop stamina? Joe is just throwing those ideas out.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s weird that all the veteran coaches Bowles has had on his staff and no one can solve why the Bucs played bad late in games, fueling losing streaks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About Those Midseason Slumps February 26th, 2026 Annual toe-stubbing. Todd Bowles is still searching. And he has yet…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605441,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2077],"tags":[211,2599,2598,7,6,704,250,2597,2596],"class_list":{"0":"post-777320","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\/116136464958881521","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777320","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=777320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=777320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=777320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=777320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}