Why the Tampa Bay Buccaneers believe

Jul 01, 2023

Share Go Long

The weapon who’ll touch the football more than anyone here knows what it’s like to live in total squalor. Rachaad White was homeless. On his final football lifeline at Mount SAC junior college, about 25 miles outside of Los Angeles, he had nowhere to live.

A teammate was evicted from his apartment. So, knowing the lights and water would function through that final bill cycle, White and one of the team’s quarterbacks seized the opportunity. They snuck through a broken window for temporary shelter and this apartment was… beyond disgusting. At least a dozen players occupied this place simultaneously, and it showed with nearly every square inch of tables and countertops covered in trash. Extreme B.O. filled the air. Cockroaches darted all over the floor.

The showers were browning in rust. The toilet? Decaying.

There was no air conditioning, either, which made every smell 100x worse.

In other words? Exactly how 99.9 percent of the football world envisions the 2023 Tampa Bay Buccaneers living this season.

Say hello to the team left for dead.

Unlike those Jaguars, Lions and Giants, outside expectations aren’t merely low. They’re nonexistent. All because the greatest player in NFL history has bid farewell. No roses are being doled out to a team in transition mode — only photoshops of USC’s Caleb Williams in a Bucs uniform. Consume any sports media and the mention of “Buccaneers” is quickly followed by sighs, jokes, cynicism. Sportsbooks give the Bucs the 29th-best Super Bowl odds. Going all in on Tom Brady led to $75,323,702 in dead-cap money, which led to a Baker Mayfield vs. Kyle Trask quarterback competition, which… doesn’t exactly electrify the masses.

No wonder people lost their collective minds back on July 6.

You heard it here at Go Long. To refresh, Carlton Davis had a knifing message for the skeptics. “Anybody who feels we’ve lost Tom — and lost something — is going to be in for a rude awakening,” he said. “A rude awakening.” I asked why and he dug in. “We’re going to wreck shit. Like, wreck shit. Interceptions. Turnovers. Plays will be made. I will say. Plays. Will. Be. Made.” Davis did not take to Twitter in damage-control panic to blame the media, unlike others. He owned it. Nor was this a rogue, clout-chasing take he’s been boiling at 500 degrees. Because he’s not alone.

Alert: This is how players here genuinely feel.

Repeat Davis’ words back to teammates and they don’t reach for the fire extinguisher to cool such bombast with platitudes. Tampa Bay expects to win a lot of games this season. Start right in that secondary. The 2020 core that harassed Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl remains. Safety Antoine Winfield believes “100 percent” that their 2023 unit is the same belligerent bunch.

“We’re going to surprise a lot of people this year,” Winfield says. “You just have to wait until Sunday nights and prove everybody wrong.

“We’ve got talent everywhere. We’ve been playing with each other for years now. So having that chemistry is what makes us pretty dangerous. I’m looking forward to the year. It’s going to be an exciting one.”

White is naturally joyful. After escaping sights of murder as a kid, a broken clavicle that nearly stabbed a main artery and all those cockroaches in college — betting on himself at every turn — you’ll never see this 24-year-old down and out. Even then, he’s something more than joyful these days. Downright buoyant. The fact that those players accounting for so much dead money aren’t on the roster isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Their voids create pockets of opportunity for young players. Only four on the team’s 90-man summer roster were older than 30 and White views all this change as refreshing. He’s been sensing far more camaraderie with this year’s team.

They’re dining together. Cracking more jokes. Linemen have even been out fishing for shark.

“People can say what they want to say,” White says. “We believe in what we’ve got and we’re going to come out swinging.”

On offense, he feels the same as Davis.

“You’re only as strong as your weakest link,” White says “We’ve got a lot of strong links. Honestly, we’re trying to go in with no weak links. I’m with CD. I’m with Carlton.”

Wide receiver Chris Godwin accurately points out that millions were crowning the Bucs last season, and that such adoration didn’t get them anywhere. They had talent — “all of the talent you could ask for” — yet staggered through a sloppy 8-9 season. All offseason talk to him is exactly that. Talk.

“Everybody outside of the building expects us to be one of the worst teams in the league,” Godwin says. “But it doesn’t matter what anybody expects to happen. All that matters is what happens when we go out there on the field and start playing games. That’s really our sole focus, to do our best to build a team.

“A team that’s together. A team that fights for each other.”

A team, of course, that cornerback Zyon McCollum predicts will “come from behind like assassins and take people by the throat.”

Not that the Bucs wants anything to do with an “underdog” label, and that’s where this gets interesting.

Coaches across the NFL love to tell players they’re being counted out when, in truth, such a tactic is contrived B.S. Remember Mahomes shouting that his Chiefs were doubted during their Super Bowl parade? Ugh. Can’t blame the impulse. Everyone in this sport scavenges the headlines for criticism. For fuel. And a Bucs team that’s being unanimously dismissed couldn’t care less. It's easy pickings, but do not expect head coach Todd Bowles, offensive coordinator Dave Canales or anyone on staff to dredge up such emotion.

Their reasoning is simple. Coaches don’t look around the locker room and see Buster Douglas, Mike Eruzione, Rulon Gardner, or any members from the ‘03 Appalachian State Mountaineers. Rather, Super Bowl winners. The Buccaneers expect to compete this season. That’s all Canales has ever known, having reached the postseason in 10 of his 13 seasons as an assistant coach with the Seattle Seahawks. He’s arguably the most important person in the building, as the man who’ll try to resurrect the career of Baker Mayfield. And he’s blunt. He doesn’t want to motivate players based off of anyone else’s opinion.

Good coverage? Bad? Canales remembers Pete Carroll sincerely never giving a damn in Seattle. Any time spent using the media as a tool was precious time taken away from improving in pass pro, running better routes vs. man, etc. Canales will be no different.

“I don’t see myself using that narrative as a motivation for my guys,” Canales says. “Because as we sit here? Talking to them and looking around the room? The guys look around to each other and they see the names at the different positions and there’s not a feeling that we’re the underdog. I understand people are writing headlines and doing all that stuff. For our group, it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like we’ve got what we need.”

Maybe the Bucs are letting a golden opportunity pass by. Whatever.

Expectations of others are inconsequential. They’ve got expectations of their own.

Says Winfield: “A successful season to me is being the No. 1 defense. Winning the division. Making a great playoff run. Getting to the Super Bowl again.”

Inform Winfield that people will hear those words — “Super Bowl” — and suggest he get drug-tested, and he doesn’t give a damn. Doesn’t even laugh it off.

The Buccaneers would just assume wreck shit in 2023, as Davis predicts.

One by one, they lay out their plan.

For the full 6,000-word story, we’d love to have you join our community.

Subscribers can access all stories, all podcasts this 2023 season.