Most Bucs Fans Getting What They Expected
November 24th, 2025
Members of Team Glazer huddle with Buccaneers general manager Jason Licht before last night’s game.
The Joe typing here isn’t swallowing all the prevailing Bucs gloom and doom whole.
Why? Because it feels fraudulent.
Don’t get confused. The Bucs played heartless, checked-out football last night in a big primetime game. It was revolting and worthy of scorn, fury and a loss of fans’ trust.
However, to be shocked by what was witnessed does not make a lot of sense. Heck, Joe predicted a convincing Rams win. And to stray so far from one’s season assessment doesn’t feel fair.
Joe is referring to how fans considered this Tampa Bay season three months ago. That’s exactly when Joe polled fans to ask how many wins they expected in the 2025 campaign. Those August 23 poll results are shown in the graphic below.
An 11-win season was the most popular choice. And Joe would wager a lot of money that most fans that projected the team to have 11 wins figured the Bucs would have a 6-5 record after losing to the Rams last night. And that is the Bucs’ current record.
A cool 28 percent of fans picked the Bucs to win 10 or fewer games.
The remaining 32 percent of fans expected a big season, picking 12 or more wins. For those fans, Joe knows their hopes and dreams were crushed completely last night. And Joe feels terribly for you.
Yes, the Bucs played like a horrid, direction-less football team last night. This is a morbid Monday. But the schedule says the team is on track to win 11 games whether your brain lets you go there or not.
If Teddy Bridgewater starts at quarterback Sunday for injured Baker Mayfield, Joe expects the Bucs to beat the floundering three-win Cardinals and their backup QB. Joe has little faith in Bridgewater after seeing him look non-competitive last night, but smart people chose him over Kyle Trask and many others, so Bridgewater deserves a clean slate and a week of practice as the top dog — if he’s needed.
The fog is thick, but the sky hasn’t fallen.