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Classifying the Bucs.
Joe has a high standard for “great.”
Sadly, over the years, the word “great” has been badly watered down. Many use the word “great” when “OK” is more apt. Sometimes, it’s worse.
On Sunday, Joe saw a reference to the Bucs’ pass rush as getting “great pressure.” _Lawd_.
So yesterday, Bucs coach Todd Bowles was asked the difference between a good and a great team.
Bowles has played on a great team, the 1980s and early 1990s Redskins under head coach Joe Gibbs. He’s coached very good teams with the Bucs and one when he was defensive backs coach under Wade Phillips in Dallas.
Shoot, Joe wouldn’t even consider the 2002 Bucs or the 2020 Bucs great teams. They were very good and loaded with very good players as well as great players. But those teams only won one Super Bowl each.
Great teams win several.
Bowles was asked Monday in his day-after presser if the Bucs are a great team or a good team? And, what is the difference between great and good?
> “The difference between a good and a great team is preparation on a daily basis,” Bowles said, likely sending a not-so-indirect message to his Bucs.
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> “I don’t think we’re great,” Bowles said. “We prepare. Most of the time, we’re very good. It’s just one or two guys that have a blank or a ME (mental error) here or there that costs everybody else, and it’s a different guy each time, and we’ve got to get that fixed.”
Joe doesn’t know if, as we stand on Nov. 11, the Bucs are a good team. Yeah, you are what your record says you are. But in two of the past three games, did the Bucs look like a good team to you?
At times they sure looked good. Other times, like this past Sunday, not good.