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Oh god it's power rankings time again. ESPN went through the time-honored tradition of arbitrarily ranking teams for fun. Their result: the Buccaneers are the 23rd-best team in the NFL.
Signing Anthony Collins and Evan Dietrich-Smith in free agency is big for Tampa Bay's offensive line. Doug Martin's return and an influx of draft weapons has Tampa's offense looking exciting.
23rd? Come on! You're saying that despite adding a slew of free agents, two high-impact players in the draft and hiring a competent head coach, the Bus are still seen as a bottom-10 team? That they're worse than the St. Louis Rams? Worse than the New York Giants? Worse than the damn New York Jets? Seriously?
Then again, it feels like I write something like that every offseason. And at the end of every regular season for the past four years, those offseason rankings have turned out to be mostly too optimistic about the Bucs.
So for all of you with dreams of success under Lovie Smith, I'm here to crush your hopes. Or at least temper them a little. People still think the Bucs suck.