The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have lost five straight games. They haven't lost that many games in a row since week 10 through 14 of the 2009 season. In that season they had no chance of making the playoffs and were working hard at getting a top 5 draft pick. This year, they seem to be working on a top 10 draft pick despite starting out the season with a 4-2 record and the division lead.
But do the Bucs still have a shot at making the playoffs, despite now losing their fifth game in a row?
Surprisingly, yes. A tiny, minuscule shot at the playoffs - but it's there. I don't need to go in-depth here: the Bucs need to win their next five games. That seems like an impossible task at this point, but things can turn around quickly in the NFL. And if the Bucs get that far, they need three of five teams to collapse: the Dallas Cowboys, the New York Giants, the Detroit Lions, the Chicago Bears and the Atlanta Falcons. And by collapse, I mean winning just one more game the rest of the season.
If the Bucs can be so lucky that they can have three or four of those teams collapse, they can make the playoffs. The most likely teams to collapse given injuries and schedule are the Giants, the Lions and the Bears. The Bucs can help the Cowboys and Falcons by beating them.
But it all starts with winning, and right now the Bucs seem incapable of playing well enough to win any game. The playoffs are nothing more than a theoretical possibility at this point. Instead, the Bucs can start gearing up for offseason improvements.