What are the chances the Buccaneers will make the 2021 playoffs?

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers returned all 22 starters from their Super Bowl winning team of last year with the sole purpose of repeating the celebrations come February 2022. There have been a few slip ups along the way, but the Bucs are on the verge of sealing their playoff spot.

Bucs looking to repeat

The Bucs started their Super Bowl defense with a narrow win over the Dallas Cowboys on Kickoff Thursday in the opening week of the regular season. Since then they have been hit with injuries and COVID issues throughout the year, but have overcome those speed bums and are in route to another post season run.

The Bucs rattled off six of their first seven games of the season with their only loss coming to the Rams in Los Angeles in Week 3. In that span Tom Brady had the Bucs scoring over 30 points per game as the Super Bowl champions seemed to be on cruise control around the halfway point of the season.

Trouble for Tampa midway thorugh season

The sailing wasn’t all smooth all the time for the Buccaneers. The trouble started in Week 8 when Tampa Bay went to New Orleans and played a Saints team that was that saw their starting quarterback Jameis Winston go down with a season ending knee injury. Trevor Siemian and the Saints went on to stun the Bucs to hand Bruce Arians’ team their first loss since Week 3.

Tampa had a bye week after the loss, and surely Tom Brady and the Bucs would right the ship against the then struggling Washington Football Team. But Tampa Bay followed the Saints loss with their flattest performance of the season as Brady threw two interceptions and the run game was non existent.

Questions started to surround the Bucs camp after the mini losing streak, because as rare as it was to see Tom Brady lose two games in a row it was even more strange to see Brady lose two in a row with a bye week in between games.

Since then, Tampa Bay has won four on the fly and now sit at 10-3 after last weekend’s overtime win over the Buffalo Bills. They are locked in a three way tie with the Green Bay Packers and the Arizona Cardinals for the top spot in the NFC and have a commanding lead over the rest of the teams in the NFC South.

The Bucs have four games over the next month and will finish off the season with games against each of the other teams in the NFC South and a game in New York against the Jets. If Tampa Bay can win at home against the Saints this weekend they will wrap up the division. The bonus for the Bucs is that they have the easiest schedule of any of the teams chasing the home field advantage throughout the playoffs.

Playoff probability: 99.9%