Raymond James Stadium (Tampa, Fla.) — Bucs coach Todd Bowles, famously calm and lowkey on the sidelines and in postgame interviews, has had enough.
Tampa Bay has lost five of seven games to drop to 7-7 on the season, and Thursday’s epic collapse, falling to the Falcons after leading by 14 points with 10 minutes left, sent him on an expletive-laden tirade that shows the level of frustration in his locker room.
What, he was asked, do you tell your team in the locker room after such a loss?
“It’s inexcusable,” Bowles said. “You don’t make excuses. You’ve got to f—ing care enough to where the s–t hurts. You’ve got to f—ing care enough to where the s–t hurts. It’s got to f—ing mean something to you. It’s more than a job. It’s your f—ing livelihood. How well do you know your job? How well can you do your job? You can’t sugarcoat that s–t. It was inex-f–ingg-cusable. There’s no f—ing answer for it. No excuse for it.
“That’s what you tell them in the locker room: Look in the f—ing mirror.”
The message seemed to hit home with his players in an understandably angry and disappointed locker room. The defense gave up three scoring drives in the final 10 minutes, but quarterback Baker Mayfield made a point to say the loss shouldn’t fall squarely on them — he threw an interception in the fourth quarter, and he missed a key throw to Emeka Egbuka on their final drive.
“(This) falls on my shoulders,” he said. “Can’t have that interception, then just have to hit Mek in stride on that (second) down. You can say what you want about being up two scores and the defense right there. We have to be better on offense. It comes down to how I play. This one’s going to haunt me. This falls on my shoulders.”
In less than a week, the Bucs have lost back-to-back home games to a Saints team that was 2-10 and a Falcons team that was 4-9. They’ve dropped to 7-7 on the season, for now a half-game behind Carolina (7-6) atop the NFC South standings. They face the Panthers twice in the final three weeks, and can still win the division just by winning those two games. But after the last two losses, the Bucs understand that any winning scenario for them requires a drastic change in the way they’re playing.
“We lost to the 2-10 Saints, and we lost to, I don’t even know what Atlanta’s record is,” All-Pro tackle Tristan Wirfs said. “At home. Up two scores. I don’t know. That was f—ing insane. … I think (center) Graham (Barton) said it last week: We’ve got to look in the mirror, because that was insane. I don’t really have much for you guys. That was embarrassing.”
The Bucs talk about having a 24-hour rule, the idea being that you don’t celebrate a win or dwell on a loss for more than a day before you move on and focus on the next game. A Thursday loss means the Bucs have three extra days before they play again and can get rid of the bitter taste of defeat.
Instead, Wirfs said, “I hope everybody sits and lets it f—ing stew.”
(Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
The Buccaneers entered their Week 9 bye week at 6-2 with four wins coming by three or fewer points. Baker Mayfield was playing great and firmly in the MVP conversation, even though the team was missing key players like running back Bucky Irving and wide receiver Mike Evans.
The question was whether the Buccaneers were genuine contenders in the NFC instead of whether they could simply win the division.
Now, those close wins early in the season instead indicate that Tampa Bay was perilously close to losing and narrowly avoided more losses as it suffered on Thursday night. In the Bucs’ first game against Atlanta back in Week 1, they rallied for the lead with a minute left but escaped only when the Falcons missed a tying field goal as time expired.
Tampa Bay’s close wins back in September (beating the Falcons, Texans, Jets and Seahawks by a combined nine points) have turned into agonizing losses in November and December (losing to the Patriots, Saints and Falcons at home by a combined 10 points).
Bowles has been consistent in saying he and his coaching staff need to coach better, that it starts with them, but Thursday, he put the onus for change on his players, saying at this stage of the season, they’re the ones who can change the direction of his team.
“The coaches have done everything they can do,” Bowles said. “This is a player-driven team in the last four or five weeks. You’ve got to execute. They’ve got to hold each other accountable.
As a coach, you can sit there ’til you’re blue in the face. Until they start holding each other accountable and doing the little things right, and that’s not everybody, we’re talking about a small, select few. But a small, select few is what’s getting us beat. Until that happens, it’s not going to get right.”
Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.
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