The Buccaneers lost 27-22 to the Ravens on Thursday night to fall to 3-5 on a season and extend their current losing streak to three games.
No one expected things to play out this way when quarterback Tom Brady opted to end his brief retirement and return to the team. The Bucs have struggled to consistently put points on the board and Thursday night’s game saw the team fail to take advantage of drives into the red zone over and over again.
The offense isn’t the only culprit. The Bucs defense gave up 231 rushing yards on Thursday night and a special teams blunder handed the Ravens their first points of the night, but this has been Brady’s team since he came aboard and losing five of six games is going to fall on his shoulders.
Some have pointed to Brady’s extended break from training camp and occasional absences during the regular season as reasons why the unit has not come together as hoped, but wide receiver Mike Evans said on Thursday night that no one in the organization is blaming the quarterback for the team’s current state of affairs.
“He’s the best to ever do it,” Evans said, via Rick Stroud of the Tampa Bay Times. “I mean, he hates losing. That’s all he knows is winning and being 3-5 is not good enough. So we’ve got to turn it around and soon. Nobody is pointing the finger at Tom Brady. It’s the whole team. It’s a team game.”
Reporters in the locker room said Brady sat at his locker in uniform staring straight ahead for a long time before making his way to a press conference that was short on answers about how the team can move forward. Brady said he thinks “we’re going to try to figure out everything,” but each loss makes it that much harder to believe the Bucs will be able to do that this season.
