Washington media calls for Colt McCoy to start against Buccaneers

The Bucs head to Washington next week to play a team that's been disastrous this year and beyond terrible this past game. They allowed Ryan Fitzpatrick to throw for 253 yards and two touchdowns with one interception on just 26 throws, Chris Ivory to run for 146 yards and a touchdown on just 20 carries while doing absolutely nothing on offense. But the most hilarious thing is this: Kirk Cousins was so bad that the Washington media is now calling for Colt McCoy to start.

That should bode well for Tampa Bay's chances as they try to get to .500 for the first second time under Lovie Smith.

The Bucs can basically forget about winning the division at this point, though -- unless they win something like 10 of their final 11 games, which seems exceedingly unlikely. The Panthers are now 5-0, although they do have a fairly tough remaining schedule, and the Falcons are 5-1 with a relatively easy schedule. Both teams are likely to drop a bunch of games, but for both of them to finish with a record worse than 11-5 seems nigh-impossible.

There is one upside: the Panthers beating the Seahawks does give the Bucs a minor boost in the wild card race, where they're tied with four other teams at 2-3, one game behind the 3-2 Minnesota Vikings for the second wild card spot and half a game ahead of the Seahawks, New Orleans Saints, Chicago Bears, Washington and San Francisco 49ers.

That's a morass of very similarly-ranked teams the Bucs have to find a way to beat out, though, and they don't have a very large chance to do so. Still, we can hope. Playing either Kirk Cousins or Colt McCoy should help.