Jason Licht Says Bucs Are Still Last Year’s 6-2 Team; Stresses Offense Will Drive Success
March 26th, 2026
What an optimistic state of the union address was delivered by Buccaneers Ring of Honor general manager Jason Licht yesterday.
Joe loved it.
Score, score and score some more. That was part of Licht’s message, as he explained offense should drive the Bucs bus in 2026.
“We feel like we’re still the same team that started off the year 6-2, 5-1, really — 6-2 at the bye week. It was a great bye week,” Licht told the official Buccaneers website. “But we just had some unfortunate injuries. You know a lot of things led to it; you never want to use that as an excuse.
“We still have some very good players on our team. Start with the offense, with our offensive line being one of the top ones in the league when we’re healthy, and the receiver room that we have, Bucky [Irving], Baker [Mayfield,] obviously, that if we can accentuate that offense — which I think will be one of the top offenses, has a chance to be — even a little bit more, and make what’s really good even better, I think that gives us a very good chance to having some success this year.”
Yes, Licht said the Bucs have strong pieces on defense but he stressed that upgrades from last year are needed, and that young defensive players need to step up more than they did.
Licht said the Bucs had a best-player-available mindset in free agency as they tried to put pieces in their puzzle with the salary cap in mind.
Joe’s morning flash poll today shows that 41 percent of Bucs fans believe Tampa Bay will win 9 or more games this coming season. Within that results subset, 24.5 percent of fans say the Bucs will win 10 or more game.
Bring on the draft!