Two Big Wins Last Night
The underdogs win in Tampa; the favorite wins in Iowa
Despite all of the long odds and naysayers, The Tampa Bay Buccaneers won a playoff game last night at home against the reigning NFC Champion Philadelphia Eagles. It is an amazing accomplishment for Head Coach Todd Bowles, GM Jason Licht and the entire organization.
I have been deeply critical of my hometown team, which continues to sport one of the worst win records in US pro sports franchise history, and which up until very recently (when they signed the GOAT Tom Brady in 2020) had only won six playoff games in its forty-plus year existence. Brady brought winning ways with him to Tampa, leading to 3 straight playoff appearances and a Super Bowl victory at the home field - a first in NFL history. Once the GOAT was gone though, most “experts” and I (clearly no expert) had the team missing the playoffs with a losing record, with some even predicting only 3-4 wins for the season.
Brady’s departure and other free agent moves left the Buccaneers with $80 million in “dead money” against the salary cap - money they had committed to Brady and a few players in previous years that counts against the salary cap this year. This presented huge challenges for the management team, and yet they were able to put together a shoestring-budgeted roster that outperformed all expectations. The biggest reason for their unlikely rise is the resurrected QB Baker Mayfield who only cost the Bucs $1.7M against the cap, but had a career year posting highs in Passing Yards (4,044), TDs (28) and completion percentage (64.3%). He was the 9th best rated passer among QBs that played at least 15 games with a 94.6 rating. But more importantly, he filled a huge leadership gap left in the wake of Brady, driving the team with swagger, guts and his never-give-up attitude. At one point in the season, the Bucs looked ready to fold. After a 3-1 start, the team lost 6 of the next 7, and silly, emotional fans like me were calling for a QB change. But thanks to leaders like Mayfield, LaVonte David, Anthony Winfield, Jr. (who perhaps single handedly won a few football games himself this season) and others, Tampa rattled off 5 of 6 wins to end the season, and won the division to host the playoff game last night. Some of those wins were shaky, but Mayfield’s leadership got them through the tough games they needed to win.
This game, against the slumping Eagles (who came in having had the best record in the NFL at 10-1 and then losing 5 of their last 6) never seemed to be in doubt. Mayfield and the Bucs scored 10 unanswered points to start the game and Philadelphia did not present a serious threat from that point. Even though the Eagles climbed to within 7 points in the second quarter, the Bucs shut the Eagles offense down with blitz packages for which Jason Hurts and the Eagles offense had no answers. The Bucs rattled off 16 unanswered points in the second half; the Eagles were really never in the game.
The victory for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers should be twice as sweet as recent playoff victories, with all of the challenges this team has overcome. Next week they face Detroit at home and that will be a very challenging test; expectations will continue to be dampened. But this team is poised to be good for a few more years if they can re-sign Mayfield, David and Mike Evans and fill out the roster as the dead money issue abates. As Jon Gruden might quip, the future is bright enough to wear shades.
Go Bucs!
Another stunning victory last night occurred in Iowa, where Donald Trump accomplished what his supporters, the pollsters and media elite knew he would, winning the Iowa caucus with an historic 51% of the votes. There was hope amongst those who were for other candidates (myself included, as regular readers will know) that the polls were wrong, that the good people of Iowa - many of them God fearing evangelicals - could not possibly vote for the former President again after all that has happened. But emotion, revenge and the “us vs. them” mentality ruled the day, as the forces arrayed against the MAGA movement which are hell-bent on Trump’s defeat so overplayed their hand that the resulting backlash was, it seems in the rear view, inevitable. Newton’s third law of motion continues to rule our politics - for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. As these anti-MAGA forces which attempt to eliminate the possibility of a second Trump term by any means necessary (incarceration, ballot fixing, disqualification, etc.) continue to anger Trump’s base, the MAGA stalwarts see no way to compete save to vote for Trump. Thus both the Biden campaign and their surrogates in media and the donor class, and the Iowa electorate chose to support the grand war that favors nostalgia over planning, emotion over intellect, narrative over truth and the “we win and you lose” mentality. It is quite disappointing but even more deflating for the future of this country. Four more years of either of these ancient duds will put us that much more behind. We cannot continue to choose candidates and Presidents this way, especially with the existential crises our nation now faces. The clock is ticking and time is not on our side.
But the times surely have changed. No longer, it appears, do we consider a candidate’s fitness for office, their ability to do the job, their record in governance, the issues they care about and their plans to fix these problems, and their ability to build coalitions for positive change, in choosing our leaders. That’s how we got Joe Biden and how we got Donald Trump. It has wrought terrible outcomes for our nation since 2016, and will do so for 2024 and our future. So as we refocus our attention on New Hampshire, South Carolina and Super Tuesday, the window to impact this runaway dumpster fire is closing. Will the people realize their folly before it is too late?