The Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost in Week 7. This in itself would not be cause for panic.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost to the formerly 1-5 Carolina Panthers in Week 7, a team without a permanent head coach, its star running back, or either of the top two quarterbacks on its depth chart entering the preseason. And they lost by 18 points without scoring a single touchdown.
This is a blaring klaxon for a Tampa team that’s suddenly 3-4 and sharing the same record with the Washington Commanders. The Bucs came into the season as a potential Super Bowl contender. Instead, Brady’s team is under .500 seven weeks into the regular season for the first time since 2002.
There’s no one thing wrong with Tampa Bay. In consecutive weeks the Buccaneers have been undone by compounding failure at multiple levels. But if we had to boil it down to three broad categories it would look something like this: