Could this be Tom Brady’s first losing season?

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers were supposed to be Super Bowl contenders this year, what with the return of the “GOAT”, who retired for all of 40 days. And yet, they just lost to a Pittsburgh Steelers team led by Kenny Picket and Mitch Trubisky. Oh, and they’re 3-3.

“It’s a game of scoring points and we just didn’t do well enough on third down and in short yardage situations and certainly not well enough in the red area,” said Tom Brady after the 20-18 loss to the Steelers.

Against the Steelers, three out of four of the Buccaneers’ red zone visits ended in a field goal. The Buccaneers should have won this game. The Steelers had lost four games in a row before beating the Bucs. They started their rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett. And they were missing several key players in their secondary.

The loss puts the Buccaneers at .500, the worst start for a team with Brady since the Patriots went 3-3 in 2012. It’s only the fourth time in Brady’s career that he has started .500 or worse through the first six games of the season (2002, 2005, 2012). The Bucs been have been held to 21 points or fewer in five of the six games this season, ranking 20th in the league in points per game.

“We didn’t earn it,” Brady said. “We didn’t earn the win. It’s a game of earning it and it’s a game of playing well and performing well and we’re just not doing a good job of that. I don’t think we’ve done it for six weeks. I think we’re all playing less than what we’re capable of. We’ve all gotta look at ourselves in the mirror and figure out why.”

In an Instagram post, Brady vowed that he and the Buccaneers would turn things around. Then again, he also told us in an Instagram post that he would retire this year, and he didn’t do that, so can he really be trusted to stick to his social media word?

Brady finished the game against the Steelers 25-of-40 for 243 yards and one touchdown. Of course, the frustration could be seen in one of Brady’s usual temper tantrums on the sidelines. The Bucs went into halftime 10-9 and had not scored a single touchdown with just 138 total yards and having allowed two sacks on their quarterback. On the sidelines, Brady was chastising the o-line for their lack of production.

The Bucs have been dealing with injuries on their offensive line since the season started and with that have come their first-half problems. They have only scored three touchdowns in the first 30 minutes of games in total this year. They have now lost to the Packers, Chiefs, and Steelers, and their wins against NFC South rivals Saints and Falcons were both unconvincing. Despite their poor start, the Bucs are lucky that the rest of their division is equally (or more) garbage. The Bucs are still tied with the Falcons for the top spot in the NFC South with the Saints at 2-4 and Panthers at 1-5. They have a game coming up this weekend against the Panthers that they should easily win, so Brady can stick to his word at least for one game.

Buccaneers head coach Todd Bowles bluntly said after the game that the players who are still living off memories of their Super Bowl LV victory need to forget it, move on, focus on this season, and start to earn their keep on the team this year.

“I think guys that are living off the Super Bowl are living in a fantasy land,” Bowles said. “You’ve gotta get your hands dirty and go to work like everybody else. We’ve been working hard and we’ve gotta work harder. Nobody’s gonna give us anything. Nobody’s gonna feel sorry. We’ve gotta go back as coaches, as players. The time for talking is over. You either gotta put up or shut up.”

Even if their hopes for winning the division are still in tact, the Buccaneers have to make some serious changes if they want to be in Super Bowl contention this season.