Back to the NFL Newsfeed

Any Given Sunday: Panthers Over Bucs

by Rivers McCown

With the Hard Knocks hype, as well as an offseason in which they reeled in DeSean Jackson and found prized tight end O.J. Howard at No. 19 overall, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were a popular sleeper team coming into this year. Then again, the Bucs have always been a popular sleeper team, and we have always been at war with Eurasia. The thought process that declared the Bucs a potential division winner involved two leaps of faith. Let's see how those are going.

1) 2016's defensive improvement would be sticky

Last year's Bucs were, by DVOA, the best Bucs pass defense since 2008.