The Buccaneers bottomed out in Week 9

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers fell to 2-6 on the season Sunday after a 30-10 loss against the New Orleans Saints, continuing what has been a disastrous 2017 campaign.

The high point of their season was their Week 2 game against the Chicago Bears, a 29-7 win at home. That one also ended up being their first of the season, after their opener against the Dolphins was rescheduled due to Hurricane Irma.

Their only other win of the season came against the Giants, who have looked even worse than the Bucs with a 1-7 record on the season.

Head coach Dirk Koetter announced Monday that the team would be shutting Jameis Winston down for a few weeks to let his throwing shoulder heal. So things aren’t about to get easier for them with Ryan Fitzpatrick at quarterback.

After raising eyebrows with a weird pregame speech where he pretending to eat his fingers resembling a “W,” Winston went just 7-of-13 passing for 67 yards before injuring his shoulder. But things got worse.

While sidelined with his injury, Winston poked Saints cornerback Marshon Lattimore in head. After Lattimore retaliated, Mike Evans zoomed in and laid out Lattimore:

Evans lucked out, and only received a 15-yard unnecessary roughness penalty. In an afternoon that saw players like Jalen Ramsey, A.J. Green, and others get ejected for fights, it was a light sentence.

Afterward, he admitted to losing his cool. “I let my emotions get the best of me,” Evans said via the Tampa Bay Times. “I thought [Lattimore] was picking a fight with my quarterback. It’s something I shouldn’t have done. It was very childish. I shouldn’t have done that. Unprofessional. … I want to play. I want to help my team. The league’s going to do what they’re going to do. I shouldn’t have done that. That was kind of malicious. I shouldn’t have hit him in his back like that. I should have just shoved him away, tried to break it up. I reacted too quick.”

The Buccaneers produced just 200 total yards, and averaged 3.5 yards per play in the game. The Saints’ defense has been better this year, ranking among the middle of the pack in the NFL allowing an average of 326 total yards and 19.4 points per game, by no means been any type of powerhouse.

For the Buccaneers to come up as poorly as they did against them is a concern. It’s even worse when your only highlight from the game is your star quarterback poking somebody in the head, and your star wideout drilling the same guy.

Offensive tackle Demar Dotson made it clear after the game the team is treading dangerous waters.

“I’ve been on the side of the fence where you’re 2-6 and guys start shutting down, and it goes from 2-6 to 3-13,” he said via ESPN’s Jenna Laine. “We don’t want that. I don’t get that sense. But at the end of the day, you never know because shutting down is an internal thing. It’s not [something] that guys show.”

DeSean Jackson also chimed in with, “I definitely didn’t see this coming. ... I’ve never really been part of something like this. This is kind of rare.”

Dotson and Jackson haven’t been the first to speak up about the team and its lack of production on the field.

After their Week 7 loss to the Bills on the road, veteran T.J. Ward said via Laine that he was “at his wit’s end” with the defense.

Evans was vocal after the team scored just three points against the Panthers in Week 8. “I don’t know what it is,” Evans said via BucsWire after their 17-3 loss. “Like I said before the season, on paper we are an amazing team, but we’re just not as good as we thought we were, so we’ve just got to pick it up. The good thing about it [is] we have nine games left.”

There’s still a chance for the Bucs to turn things around, but they’re slim. At this point, Dotson’s concern becomes the biggest thing to avoid. But it might be too late for the Buccaneers at this point.

Offensively, Winston’s touchdown production hasn’t gone up enough to offset his turnovers. His first two seasons, he had seven and 10 more touchdowns than interceptions. So far in 2017, he’s got just four more touchdowns than turnovers with 10 touchdowns and six interceptions.

The more glaring problem is the Buccaneers are one of the worst defensive teams in the NFL, and have dropped off even more after being 23rd in the NFL in total defense last season. Usually there’s at least one or two things a defense does well despite its shortcomings, but there’s nothing that they do particularly well on that side of the ball.

They’re tied for 21st in the NFL with just five interceptions, and are the worst in the league at sacking the quarterback. In their eight games this season, they have just eight sacks. The next worst team is the Packers, who have 12. It’s been so bad, they played the lowly Giants and didn’t even force a turnover or record a sack.

Until the Buccaneers can at least give their offense chances, things are going to be tough for them. It would be an entirely different story if the offense was clicking, but it’s not, and will only get worse with Winston out.