Getty Image / Nick Cammett
The 2023 NFL season is going to see the Tampa Bay Buccaneers go through a big change.
After 3 seasons with Tom Brady leading the way, they’ll need to find their new identity with him heading into retirement.
The options to replace him aren’t the most inspiring with the Bucs signing Baker Mayfield to compete with former 2nd round pick Kyler Trask for the starting job.
The team is also coming off of a disappointing 2022 season. They won their division and made the playoffs, but only because they happened to play in a really bad division.
The Bucs only managed to earn a record of 8-9 in the regular season, beating out a division full of 7-10 teams with quarterback issues for the division crown.
Despite the struggles of last season and the big change that is coming, it seems one of their stars is expecting the team to be much better in 2023.
Tristan Wirfs appeared on the “Vikes Verified” podcast yesterday and revealed that he believes the team will be 12-5 in 2023.
Super Bowl Champ Tristan Wirfs joins the show! https://t.co/gtmL2dLxxd
— VV (@VikesVV) June 29, 2023
The Bucs have some things working in their favor to be able to not regress this season.
Their division still isn’t all that tough even after the Saints brought in Derek Carr. They also have a favorable schedule outside of their division.
They get 4 games against the awful AFC South and 4 more against a declining NFC North, which should give them a lot of opportunities for wins.
However, they have to travel to Buffalo, San Francisco and Minnesota and also have games against the Eagles, Jaguars, and Lions. Those will all be tough matchups and it wouldn’t be shocking for them to end up with at least 4 losses from that group of games.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers could certainly be in the hunt for the NFC South crown again next season and might not see their record get worse in 2023, but there were only 7 teams in the league that won 12 games last season.
It’s hard to see the Bucs joining that list with Baker or Trask at QB.