2012 Record: 7-9
2012 Rankings
Total Offense: 9
Passing Offense: 10
Rushing Offense: 15
Scoring Offense: 13
Total Defense: 29
Passing Defense: 32
Rushing Defense: 1
Scoring Defense: 23
Offense
On paper, the Tampa Bay offense should be one of the best in the league. They have a young running back in Doug Martin that can absolutely take over a game, a star WR in Vincent Jackson and a strong-armed quarterback in Josh Freeman. Freeman has been plagued with inconsistency and has not proven himself in the fourth quarter. Tampa has all the offensive weapons to be a competitive group this season.
Defense
The Bucs run defense was a deceiving stat because of how bad their pass defense was. They faced the 3rd fewest rushing attempts of any team and the 2nd most passing attempts. The Bucs went out and traded their first round pick to the Jets for Darrelle Revis, who seems to be recovered from his ACL injury. They also added safety Dashon Goldson from the 49ers in an attempt to boost their secondary. The biggest problem this team will have is in their pass rush, which tallied the 3rd fewest sacks in the league last season.
Intangibles
Defense is still the biggest question mark for Tampa Bay. They made huge upgrades to their secondary but haven't made many additions to their front seven.
Prediction
Last season was a tale of three parts for the Bucs. They started 1-3, dropping 3 games by 15 total points. After their bye, they won 5 of 6 to put themselves in the playoff picture before dropping 5 in a row down the stretch to fall back out of it. This team will ride or die with Josh Freeman and I just don't think he's ready for primetime. He is 1-12 after November 19 the last two seasons. 5-11.
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