Chuck Todd is really scared of the Buccaneers

Every year around this time, The MMQB’s Peter King goes on holiday and hands off his weekly column-writing duties to some seemingly random folks. This time MSNBC’s Chuck Todd took over, and he had a few interesting things to say about the Bucs.

Todd is a Green Bay Packers fan, but he’s convinced the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will do very well this season. In fact, he says that the Bucs are the NFC team that scares him the most.

When Tampa inevitably gets deep in the playoffs, I’m convinced Winston has that “it” factor a QB needs to meet the moment. And now, he’s surrounded with great playmakers. Mike Evans is a human highlight machine and DeSean Jackson is going to love getting one-on-one coverage by playing the opposite side of the field from Evans. Bottom line: Tampa Bay is going to be a lot of fun to watch this season. As a Packers fan, I sure hope the Cowboys or Panthers get stuck playing the Bucs in the playoffs before the Packers have to face them.

That’s really encouraging to hear. There are plenty of question marks surrounding the Bucs this season, but there’s a chance Todd turns out to be right—and that’d be really exciting to watch—not to mention a pretty big change of pace. The Bucs haven’t made it to the playoffs since the 2007 season, after all.

Todd focuses on the offense, of course, but the Bucs will need more than just Jameis Winston and his “it” factor—that thing that everyone is convinced some quarterbacks have, but no one seems to be able to actually measure. They’ll need defense, too, and I’m skeptical that a quality defense will show up this season.