Bucs Need To Realize No One Believes In Them

Yes, the idea of playing with a chip on your shoulder may be cliché. But there’s a reason every champion’s on-field interview includes the words “no one believed in us.”

Even the top dogs — the teams expected to raise trophies — manufacture that attitude. Georgia did so when they beat TCU 65-7 to win a second consecutive national championship earlier this year. The Chiefs did it when they won their second Lombardi Trophy in four years about a month later.

For the Bucs, though, no manufacturing of narratives needs to be done. The negativity and doubt is out there for everyone to see. Pewter Report’s Scott Reynolds wrote in his SR’s Fab 5 column on March 31 that Tampa Bay should make note of what’s being written and said about them. That’s not a bad idea.

“If I’m Bowles, I’m collecting every negative social media post, every story, every ranking and every clip from every sports talking head show that bashes the Bucs to make my team aware that there is zero faith in this team outside of its own building,” Reynolds wrote.

Well, that was March. Fast forward to the beginning of June and those social media posts and stories will be even easier to find. Everyone seems to believe the Bucs are going to go back to what they were in the pre-Tom Brady years. But no one in that locker room is going to think that way — and they shouldn’t.

It’s unlikely they need the added motivation to go out there and compete in 2023, but if they do, there’s plenty of doubt to thrive on.

Good News: The Bucs Are Aware Of The Negativity

The good news is that the Bucs aren’t at all oblivious to the noise around them. Just this week, ESPN’s Bill Barnwell described Tampa Bay’s quarterback group as “dreadful.”

Baker Mayfield, who is locked in a quarterback battle with Kyle Trask, seemed to catch wind of that description. He went ahead and used it as the caption for his latest post on Instagram. That is the type of attitude the team needs to have.

Mayfield is used to having doubters. A former walk-on, he went on to take the college football world by storm before winning the Heisman Trophy at Oklahoma and being selected No. 1 overall by the Browns in 2018.

To the 28-year-old who is looking to seize what might be his last chance to be a starting quarterback in the league, the skepticism surrounding Tampa Bay is nothing other than people being bored during the offseason.

“I played in this division last year and I am pretty sure the Bucs won it still, so I don’t really care what the people in Vegas putting odds on it [think] because it’s May,” Mayfield said last month. “We haven’t played a real snap of football. There is a long way to go before that. It’s just the time of year where everybody is pretty bored and they don’t really have much to talk about and it makes it fun.”

Tom Brady may be gone, but this is still a Bucs team with Pro Bowl talent up and down the roster. When Mayfield arrived in Tampa, he gathered a good first impression – one that doesn’t sound befitting of a team that will lie down and be the bottom-five finisher everyone seems to expect them to be.

“From top down it’s all about winning,” he said. “That’s the best part – no distractions, no other nonsense, it’s just about how can we get on the same page toward winning? That is how you build a great franchise, and that’s why it is one.”

From the top down is right. Vice President of Player Personnel John Spytek said after the draft that the Bucs are taking this new era as a chance to redefine themselves.

“We’re excited,” Spytek said. “We’re approaching this from a standpoint like we’re excited. This is a chance to redefine ourselves. To do some things different. We have a lot of really good players still.

“Obviously when you lose – in our opinion – the greatest quarterback of all time, things are going to look and feel a lot different. But we’ve got a bunch of young guys that we’ve drafted the last couple of years that have, number one, either proven themselves already, or are chomping at the bit to get more of an opportunity to prove themselves.”

So, Mayfield knows what people are saying. Spytek surely does too. You know Todd Bowles, Jason Licht, Mike Evans, Lavonte David, Tristan Wirfs — and everyone in that locker room — are aware of it as well.

They need to know that no one believes in them — and they all do. The big key from there? Use that and respond to it on the field come September.

They may just go out and do some things that no one thought they could do.