TAMPA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Todd Bowles delivered a message to his team with an uncharacteristic profanity-laced reaction during a postgame news conference after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers blew a 14-point fourth-quarter lead last week.<\/p>\n
Whether it impacts the team\u2019s performance will be known Sunday.<\/p>\n
The Buccaneers (7-7) have lost five of six and six of eight heading into a showdown for first place in the NFC South against the Carolina Panthers (7-7).<\/p>\n
\u201cAccountability could be doing little things right, it could be teammates talking to each other, you\u2019re talking to yourself, coaches talking to each other,\u201d Bowles said Wednesday. \u201cWe understood the message after the ball game. We met on it, we talked about it, we got it out of our system. Everybody is hard at work and trying to do the right things to win the ball game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bowles lashed out at his team directly and in a news conference after the Bucs wasted a 28-14 lead and lost 29-28 to the Atlanta Falcons last Thursday night.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey got the message,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s football, guys. I don\u2019t know. There have probably been a billion stories written when coaches have lost that got (ticked) off and said something to their guys. It\u2019s not an issue. We\u2019re fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bucs technically don\u2019t have to win Sunday in the first of two meetings over the next three weeks against the Panthers. They will secure their fifth straight division title with two victories in the final three games. Or, they would clinch with one win out of two games against the Panthers if Carolina also loses to Seattle next week.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re going to lose some games in this league,\u201d Bowles said. \u201cWe\u2019ve all lost some throughout our entire lives. You don\u2019t like it that day, but you get up the next day, put your head down, you go to work, and you try to correct the little things, and you move on. You don\u2019t hold it and make it any tougher than it has to be. It\u2019s a football game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Bucs started 5-1 and were 6-2 at their bye week. But they\u2019ve lost to the Patriots, Bills, Rams, Saints and Falcons since coming back. Their only win was 20-17 against the lowly Cardinals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still have everything right in front of us,\u201d Bowles said. \u201cWe got some things to clean up, but it\u2019s about right where you need to be at this time with everybody fighting for a playoff spot. We\u2019re playing meaningful games in December and that\u2019s all you can ask for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bowles questioned whether some players care enough after the loss to the Falcons. Quarterback Baker Mayfield also has called out teammates previously and All-Pro left tackle Tristan Wirfs hoped players would \u201cstew\u201d over the loss to Atlanta during a mini-bye last weekend.<\/p>\n
Still, players aren\u2019t pointing fingers directly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe finger pointing (is) only happening if you have bad culture in the building,\u201d Mayfield said. \u201cThat\u2019s not a problem we have to deal with. We met on Monday with the offense, and I told them what I said in the postgame press conference. I said it\u2019s on me, it\u2019s on this group, I expect us to be able to score more than 28 (points) in a situation like that and put the game out of reach. You just nip it in the bud in the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NFL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nfl<\/p>\n
Rob Maaddi, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Todd Bowles delivered a message to his team with an uncharacteristic profanity-laced reaction during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":353269,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-353268","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=353268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/353268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/353269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=353268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=353268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=353268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}