TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are in uncharted waters. The team has lost five of its last six games to fall to 3-5 on the season.
Now they must face a Los Angeles Rams team that is 3-0 against the Bucs since Tom Brady arrived in Tampa.
“I think we have a bad taste in our mouth from the last three weeks,” head coach Todd Bowles said. “We don’t have time to worry about the bad taste from the Rams.”
The Bucs will have had 10 days between games; time used to re-set and get back to the fundamentals.
“I think we are handing it pretty well. We had a good practice today,” offensive lineman Tristan Wirfs said. “I thought the energy is really good. Only one team can win football games. It’s going to happen eventually. It’s going to happen in everyone’s career. It sucks that it’s happening now. You can’t hide in a corner. You have to go out and fight.”
That fight will be right in the Bucs’ backyard Sunday against the Rams. Defensively, the Bucs will focus on stopping wide receiver Cooper Kupp, who is averaging more than 140 yards per game and scored three touchdowns in his last three against Tampa Bay.
“He’s a great player, one of the best guys in the league,” safety Mike Edwards said. “Just watching him on film, he stands out. The volume, the balls he gets, they feed him a lot. He gets open and runs some crazy routes.”
Even with the losing streak and the ugly record, the Bucs are still in the NFC South race and have no reason to give up.
“We’re still in a pretty decent position. Obviously not where we want to be,” Wirfs said. “But, we’re okay. We can still do everything we want to do. We just made it a little harder on ourselves.”
Quarterbacks Tom Brady and Matthew Stafford could be tasked to throw the ball all over the field on Sunday. The Bucs and Rams have the two worst rushing offenses in the NFL.
