TAMPA, Fla. — Buccaneers fans are still waiting for that easy breezy win in the 2022 season.
Tampa Bay sits 3-3 after six games played, with its last defeat extremely disappointing, to say the least.
The 20-18 loss against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday has led to a lot of questions from the fan base.
Some of those concerns are valid, but it is still too early to press the panic button for Tom Brady and company.
Here are a few takeaways from the first third of the season.
Poor run game
Let's go ahead and get started with the negatives.
Leonard Fournette has proven himself to be an elite player with rookie Rachaad White has impressed in short spurts.
With that being said, Tampa Bay's rushing offense is the worst in the league. The team is only averaging 3.07 yards per carry. Furthermore, their longest run of the season is 17 yards, which is also dead last.
The only time the rushing offense has had more than 100 yards in a contest was Week 1 against Dallas when Fournette rushed for 127 yards.
Fournette and White have shown their ability to be effective in the passing game, but that's probably a byproduct of not moving the ball on the ground. Having your running back (Fournette) lead the team in receptions is less than ideal six weeks into the schedule.
While Fournette and White could do better, a lot of the woes can be attributed to the offensive line.
"We've got to execute better," Bowles said during the team's media availability on Monday. "We miss a block here and there, or somebody swims us and gets by and makes it look worse than it is. It's a group effort. We're trying to find the best solution, how we can get better in those areas."
Stale offense
The offensive line is a problem in general so it trickles into our next point.
Pittsburgh entered its contest with almost its entire starting secondary injured. Also, T.J. Watt did not play. The Buffalo Bills roasted this squad 38-3 the week before.
Why was wide receiver Mike Evans only targeted four times?
Most of the offensive play calls throughout the game failed to test that struggling Steelers secondary.
Offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich has always had Bruce Arians to lean on, and presumably still does, but without Arians on the sidelines -- you wonder if Leftwich is struggling to find a groove?
Tom Brady is not excused from blame, but he was excused from walkthrough Saturday after not traveling with the team. He was attending the wedding of Robert Kraft in New York City. Did that play a part in Tampa Bay's loss on Sunday? Probably not, but still. It is a bad look.
Throwing for more than 1,600 yards is great, but eight touchdowns is not good enough. The Bucs are scoring 50 percent of the time when in the red zone. That's a stark difference from last season when they were 66 percent.
For Bowles, the blame must be shared with everyone on the team.
"Players have to execute what the coaches call and coaches have to make sure that the players are in the right position to call them," he said. "We've got to find a way to get our stars the ball. Move them around, get them off picks, double [teams] – we have to find a way to get them the ball more."
The longest play for the Bucs at Acrisure Stadium was a 28-yard catch to wide receiver Chris Godwin.
Special teams sloppiness
Kicker Ryan Succop did his usual duties to keep Tampa Bay in the game, including an impressive 54-yard kick at the end of the first half.
Nobody has been more consistent than Succop this season.
However, the kick return unit did not look as good, specifically on one play.
The Bucs gave up an 89-yard return to start the second half which eventually led to Pittsburgh picking up three points.
"A few guys went underneath all at the same time when they weren't supposed to," Bowles said. "I think it's important for those guys to learn who they're playing next to – whether it's a speed guy, a power guy, a finesse guy – to understand what they can and can't do and play off each other more."
It may seem sort of nit-picky, but if Tampa Bay stops that return from getting into the red zone, maybe they don't get the three points and that could have been enough to win the game.
Pittsburgh's late 3rd & long conversions
The Bucs' defense did well to force the Steelers with third and long scenarios, but that was about it. Pittsburgh converted multiple 4th quarter third downs to give themselves a much-deserved win. Mitchell Trubisky carved up the Buccaneers at the most critical points in the game. Trubisky, who lost the starting job to rookie Kenny Pickett after poor performance, got inserted into the game late due to injury and stepped up big time. While you have to tip your cap to him, how did that happen?
The Bucs are fifth in scoring, fifth in turnovers forced and third in sacks -- they are also 22nd in third down efficiency.
"We know where the ball's going, we understand what's coming and we did not make a play to get off the field, to give the offense a chance to get the ball back to win the ballgame," Bowles said. "Our secondary, depending on health and who we play, will probably look different each week – depending on how we use guys, depending on if they fit what we're doing."
The bigger picture
Now that we got all the cons out of the way, let's focus on why it's not time to give up on the Bucs.
Bowles and company are still leading the NFC South and it will probably stay that way for most of the season. The Carolina Panthers are a mess, the Saints don't have a quarterback and the Falcons are still probably nothing more than an 8-8 squad.
Not saying the Bucs will be gifted the division, but their roster is clearly the best in the NFC South on paper.
Also, this is a marathon and plenty of other teams are finding themselves too. The defending Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams are 3-3 along with the best team in the conference from one season ago, Green Bay.
When the Bucs won the Super Bowl two years ago, they started the year 7-5 and turned it around.
Additionally, as it stands right now, the Buccaneers have no one left on the schedule with a winning record. Now, that will surely change, but that's still encouraging entering Week 7.
Also, Jason Licht and company will almost certainly bring in help with the trade deadline approaching on Nov. 1. It is no secret the Super Bowl window could be closed for a little bit after the year, so mortgaging some picks for a chance to win it all seems like a fair compromise to make.
Finally, the Buccaneers offense still doesn't have Julio Jones. They also were missing Logan Ryan, Akiem Hicks and Mike Edwards defensively. Help is on the way for the back half of the season, internally.
Kickoff for Tampa Bay's matchup against Carolina is scheduled at 1 p.m. Sunday in Bank of America Stadium.