Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 2021 Preseason Predictions and Preview

Tampa Bay Buccaneers: 2021
Preseason Predictions and
Preview
After bringing every starter back, Tom Brady and Buccaneers
have one goal in mind — repeat as Super Bowl
champsbuccaneers.com
Tom Brady’s first season in Tampa Bay ended with a celebration
worthy of a true pirate — staggering into port after a drunken
Super Bowl boat parade. By then, he had secured his seventh
Super Bowl title and completed his final pass when he threw
the Lombardi Trophy over the Hillsborough River to tight end
Cameron Brate, who was stationed on another vessel.

Blame it on the avocado tequila, Brady said, that he consumed
on his $2 million, 55-foot Viva a Vida — the GOAT boat. He is
no stranger to winning Super Bowls, but he never did anything
like this in icy Boston.

“If I had dropped that? I think I would’ve had to retire,”
Brate says of Brady’s trophy pass. “That was amazing. He
pointed it at me. We talked about it earlier. It was a great
throw. I mean, what do you expect from Tom Brady? A great
throw.”

At 43, Brady made enough great throws to pass for 4,633 yards
and 40 touchdowns with 12 INTs during the regular season in
head coach Bruce Arians’ offense. He added another 1,061
passing yards and 10 TDs in three road playoff games and the
Super Bowl — the first one won by a team in its home stadium.

The Bucs return all 22 starters, signaling they’re not ready
to toss a chance at back-to-back Super Bowls overboard.

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OFFENSE
The Bucs should be even better after getting the band back
together. Chris Godwin received the franchise player tag, and
the Bucs re-signed free agents such as Rob Gronkowski, Leonard
Fournette and Antonio Brown. Brate agreed to restructure his
contract, and tight end O.J. Howard is returning from a
ruptured Achilles. The Bucs also added a sure-handed pass-
catching running back in Bengals free agent Giovani Bernard.

It was no surprise that the Bucs needed some time to get the
offense going last season. They were 7-5 heading into a bye
week when Brady and Arians ironed a few things out. They
agreed to an enhanced commitment to the run game, play-action
and pre-snap motion. The result was an offensive explosion
that led to eight straight wins to close out the season. The
Bucs averaged 33.9 points per game in those eight contests,
twice scoring more than 40 points and only once failing to
tally 30.

Arians has said he believes the Bucs could average 40 points
per game in 2021, given Brady’s familiarity with the system
and his teammates.

A full season with Brown, who agreed to a one-year contract,
could also pay big dividends. He joined the Bucs after serving
an eight-game suspension and still produced 45 catches for 483
yards and four TDs in the regular season, adding another eight
catches and a pair of touchdowns in the playoffs. Those totals
could easily be doubled.

The Bucs may need to play with two footballs. But they have
selfless receivers such as Mike Evans, the first player to
start his career with seven straight 1,000-yard seasons, and
Scotty Miller, whose TD catch just before halftime in the NFC
Championship Game doomed the Packers.

Fournette, dubbed Playoff Lenny and Lombardi Lenny for his

impressive run during the playoffs, will battle it out with
Ronald Jones II for the starting tailback role. That’s one to
watch. Fed up with his attitude, Arians asked Fournette if he
wanted to be released following a game vs. Minnesota in which
he was inactive — a moment that apparently lit a fire under
the LSU product.

Bernard gives Brady what he lacked, a sure-handed target out
of the backfield a la the Patriots’ James White. The Bucs also
added a receiver/kick returner with game-breaking speed in
North Texas rookie Jaelon Darden.

College Football

Much of the credit for the Bucs’ success belongs to offensive
coordinator Byron Leftwich, who has worked hard to collaborate
with Brady. Leftwich didn’t receive a single offseason head-
coaching interview, which Arians calls “a farce.”

Tampa Bay Buccaneers 2021 Schedule

DEFENSE
By the time the Bucs’ defense faced Kansas City in Super Bowl
LV, they were one of the best units in the NFL. Tampa Bay held
Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs to no touchdowns in a 31-9
rout. The Bucs sacked Mahomes three times and tallied 22
pressures.

Everyone is back after the team negotiated new contracts for
Shaquil Barrett, Lavonte David and Ndamukong Suh. Perhaps just
as important, defensive coordinator Todd Bowles did not get
plucked in the 2021 head coaching cycle after interviews with
the Eagles and Falcons.

The biggest break the Bucs got last year may have been the
return of defensive tackle Vita Vea from a gruesome broken leg
in a Week 5 loss at Chicago. Vea was cleared to return from

injured reserve and played 33 snaps in his first game back —
the NFC Championship Game. Although he didn’t record a stat,
he pushed the pocket into Aaron Rodgers’ lap. Left with one-
on-ones, Jason Pierre-Paul and Barrett combined for five
sacks. Joe Tryon, a 2021 first-round pick from Washington,
will add to that rotation.

The secondary blossomed, with Sean Murphy-Bunting posting an
interception in three straight playoff games leading up to the
Super Bowl. Rookie safety Antoine Winfield Jr. was highly
effective. His forced fumble in the NFC divisional playoff
game and interception in the Super Bowl were two of the
biggest plays of the season.

Cornerback Carlton Davis III led the Bucs with four picks and
proved capable of locking down the opponent’s best receiver.
Safety Jordan Whitehead has been a key component to the NFL’s
top rushing defense the past two years.

The leader of the defense is Devin White. He’s a budding
superstar in the league, a player who never comes off the
field. Big, fast and powerful, White is the only voice in the
huddle and is just scratching the surface with his play. The
bigger the game, the bigger he plays. He had a game-sealing
interception vs. the Saints in the divisional playoff and
another pick in the Super Bowl.

SPECIALISTS
There’s no way to quantify what it means for the Bucs to have
a reliable placekicker like Ryan Succop, who stabilized a
position that has bedeviled Tampa Bay for more than a decade
despite their best efforts to solve it. The arrival of Succop
late in training camp was one of the biggest reasons for the
Bucs’ Super Bowl run. He went 28-of-31 on field-goal attempts
(90.3 percent) and was perfect on all nine tries in the
postseason.

The Bucs rewarded Succop with a three-year, $12 million
contract. They also will have the same battery with long-
snapper Zach Triner and punter Bradley Pinion as the holder.
Pinion averaged 45.2 yards per punt and placed 19 inside the
20.

Where the Bucs need some help is in the kick return game. To
that end, they drafted Darden, a 5’8″ speedster who led the
nation with 19 receiving touchdowns last year.

FINAL ANALYSIS
Arians says, “We’re going to two!” He means winning back-to-
back Super Bowl titles, something that hasn’t been done since
— ahem — Brady did it with the Patriots in the 2003 and 2004
seasons. Don’t bet against them. The Bucs are the first Super
Bowl winners to return 22 starters since the ’77 Raiders. The
NFC South is weaker. Saints QB Drew Brees threw his final NFL
pass (an interception) against the Bucs in the playoffs.
Carolina is rebuilding, and Atlanta is in transition. The
biggest advantage is that the Bucs return their entire
coaching staff, including Bowles and Leftwich.

Brady will be 44 in August but showed no signs of slowing down
despite minor offseason knee surgery. But it’s the defense
that found another gear in the playoffs last year. The Bucs
are the defending champs and are among this season’s
favorites.

Brady recently purchased a new 70-foot vessel. Having
captained one water parade, he knows he’s going to need a
bigger boat.

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