Buccaneers 2016 season preview: Beat down the Rams in week three

Previewing the 2016 Tampa Bay Buccaneers season game by game. This week: Week three against the Los Angeles Rams.

Bucs’ all-time record vs. Rams: 8-15

The Los Angeles (then St. Louis) Rams have won each of the last four games against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, some of them in brutal fashion. Nick Foles’ last-second touchdown pass in 2013 was especially egregious, but these games have been no fun for Bucs fans for years on end.

It’s time for Tampa Bay to change that in week three of the 2016 regular season. This will be the first home game for the Bucs this season, and the first regular season game in a renovated stadium. There’s a lot of excitement among Bucs fans, and they should come out in force to support their team.

It helps that the Rams just aren’t a very good team. They have a ridiculous amount of talent along their offensive line and a solid second-year running back in Todd Gurley, and that’s about it. First overall pick Jared Goff isn’t about to be ready to lead this team to success, and is more likely to be shell-shocked than anything else this early in the season.

In all, this should, if everything goes right, be a comfortable win for the Bucs. If firing Lovie Smith was the right move, and if the Bucs are on their way to being a real power in the NFL, this is when you should be able to really see that: a crushing beatdown of the Los Angeles Rams.