Bucs Nation
The Buccaneers have made it clear that regular-season success is no longer enough. Here are three Secret Superstars who could help the team get past the low ceilings of their recent postseasons.
In the four seasons since they beat the living daylights out of Patrick Mahomes and won Super Bowl LV in a 31-9 thrasher, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have been a successful team by most conventional measures. They’ve won the NFC South in each of those four seasons, and their regular-season mark of 40-28 in that time is right up there with the NFL’s best.
Both general manager Jason Licht and head coach Todd Bowles received contract extensions in late June, and this is the only NFC South team to make the playoffs in each of the last five years.
The problem has been, of course, the limited postseason success since that Super Bowl win. A 2-4 playoff record, and never advancing past the Divisional Round, are not points of great pride for any franchise. It’s a sting for one of the most stable teams in the league, but there’s something preventing these Bucs from taking it over the top.
The overall roster is not a serious issue. The 2024 Bucs ranked seventh in Offensive DVOA and 16th in Defensive DVOA, and this was with a fairly large number of injuries. Licht and Bowles have done a great job of keeping the band together and adding to the team in smart ways, but when your seasons end quickly when it counts the most, what once looked like stability starts to be more about bumping your head on your own ceiling.
Following the 23-20 Wild Card loss to the Washington Commanders on Jan. 12 that ended with Washington kicker Zane Gonzales’ 37-yard field goal as time expired (and quite a bit of general frustration that his own team didn’t match the Commanders’ fourth-down aggressiveness), Bowles seemed especially resolute that the mistakes of the past would not be made again.
“We’re not going to overachieve and disappoint. We underachieved as far as [we] are concerned. We don’t worry about external expectations. Our internal expectations were for us to go to the Super Bowl. Injury or regardless, our internal expectations are to go to the Super Bowl. We did not get that accomplished. We did some good things throughout the year, yes. We had guys injured, yes. We got to the playoffs, yes but our expectations are to win the Super Bowl.”
If these Bucs are to buck their recent trends, it’ll be up to everyone on the roster to figure it out. In the continuation of our “Hidden Gems” series, let’s look at three Secret Superstars on the 2025 team — one underrated veteran, free-agent signing, and draft pick.
Given Bowles’ experience as a defensive back and a defensive backs coach, one expects a lot out of the secondary prospects the coach really likes. This was the case for Sam Houston State’s Zyon McCollum in...
