Week 7: Bucs and Bears 10/24

On October 24, the Buccaneers hosted the Chicago Bears at Raymond James Stadium. The Bears had one of the best defenses in the league heading into week 7, leading multiple experts to believe it would be a much better game than what actually happened.
Unlike their defense, the Bears offense had been horrendous and it was apparent during the whole game. The Bucs were playing rookie quarterback Justin Fields and decided to take advantage of it. They blitzed many times in the first half and found much success with it, sacking Fields 4 times, forcing a fumble on 3 of them. The defense also made Fields throw 3 interceptions. One of those was from veteran new-comer, Pierre Desir, who got his first INT on the 6th team of his career.
Tom Brady and the Bucs offense proved the Bears defense to be frauds. Brady was able to find success with almost all of his throws, finishing 20/36 for 211 yards, 4 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions. Brady tried spreading the ball around to every target and the Bears weren’t able to stop it. The run game was great again with Leonard Fournette getting 81 yards and a touchdown, along with Ronald Jones getting 63 yards. Promising rookie receiver Jaelon Darden even had a 43 yard punt return.
Now let’s talk about records. Heading into the game, Brady was 2 touchdowns short of reaching 600 career touchdowns. To get his 600th, Brady threw a 9-yard post to Mike Evans, who on that same pass, doubled the Buccaneers career receiving touchdowns record with 68. After Evans caught the touchdown, he gave the ball to a fan wearing his jersey. Since it was Brady’s 600th, he wanted it back. In order for Brady to get it back, the fan (Byron Kennedy) wanted – and received – a signed Tom Brady jersey, a signed Mike Evans jersey, Mike Evans’ game cleats, a Brady-signed football, season tickets for the remaining games of this season and the entire 2022 season, $1K in team store credit, and 1 Bitcoin ($62,000).
On the negative side of things, The Bucs were still riddled with injuries. Cornerbacks Carlton Davis, Sean Murphy-Bunting, and Richard Sherman were all injured. Dean went down but then came back in for the next drive. Tight end Rob Gronkowski and superstar linebacker Lavonte David were injured from another game but their absences weren’t noticed. Receiver Antonio Brown was out for the game but will be back next week. Expect to see Gronk and David back with him as well. Expect Carlton Davis, Sean Murphy-Bunting, and Richard Sherman to return after the week 9 bye week.
In week 8, The Bucs travel to New Orleans to take on the Saints for the first time this season on Halloween at 4:25 P.M. ET on FOX in America’s game of the week.

Week 8: Bucs @ Saints 10/31

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers struggle to beat the New Orleans Saints in the regular season. In a rivalry that keeps getting more intense after last year’s divisional round where the Bucs pulled out a 30-20 win to go on to be Super Bowl LV champs. The Bucs still can’t seem to beat the Saints as they are 1-3 since Tom Brady has taken over against New Orleans. The Bucs took a strong fight while going up against Jameis Winston, the former Buc. They took an early touchdown lead and then soon lost it when the Saints took a big lead to bring it to 23-7 at one point. Gronk soon was ruled out again after playing just five snaps with a rib injury. He sat with Antoino Brown on the bench who was also ruled out before the game with his injured ankle. Sherman did not play any snaps, but was active with a hamstring problem. They struggle defieviely even with Jamies Winston going down with a ACL injury for the Saints.
Trevor Siemian, who has not played since 2019, came in and had his struggles. At the beginning, he was not able to play at his previous level years before, but eventually he was able to outplay the Bucs’ defensive secondary for a hand in the Saint’s win. The Bucs are hoping for Sean Murphy-Bunting and Carlton Davis III back soon, adding on to the injury list. The Bucs had their struggles offensively for the first time since week three against the Rams. Tom Brady and Chris Godwin did have a good game, Mike Evans had a good couple plays and a great touchdown as well as Cyril Grayson who had an explosive first NFL touchdown. The Bucs still could not make a stop, penalties killed them, a lot of bad and missed calls as usual against the Saints.
The Bucs had a better second half as they came back to take the lead 27-26. The Saints quickly went down the field with penalties and easy passes through the Bucs defense to get a field goal to make it 27-29. Tom Brady and the Bucs had a minute and a half to go score. This is usually easy for Tom Brady, but a miscommunication pass to Chris Godwin led to a Tom Brady thrown pick six. The Bucs will have a week to get healthy as they have a bye week. We will wait to face off against the Washington Football Team in week 10. During week 9 some matchups to watch are the Falcons and Saints for divisional placement and later playoff contention reasons and for division Panthers versus Patriots. So enjoy the Bye week as we wait for week 10 as we will Face the Football Team on FOX.