Bucs HC Todd Bowles Sees Growth in His Team: Ready for Eagles Rematch

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will play host to the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday night to wrap up the NFL’s “Super Wild Card Weekend,” which means for the third year in a row the Buccaneers’ playoff journey starts with an in-season rematch. The Eagles also came to Tampa in September, leaving with a 25-11 victory that was the Bucs first loss after a 2-0 start to the campaign.

A year ago, the Buccaneers were home for a Wild Card week matchup with the Dallas Cowboys, who they had beaten in Texas, 19-3, in the season opener. The Cowboys won the rematch, 31-14 to advance to the Divisional Round. In 2021, it was the Eagles again, after Tampa Bay had won in Philadelphia, 28-22 in mid-October. The Bucs finished off the season sweep convincingly with an opening-round 31-15 win at Raymond James Stadium.

The last time the Buccaneers played a postseason game that was not a rematch of an early contest during the regular season was in 2020, when they started a three-game road swing by beating Washington, 31-23, at FedExField. It’s hard to see any pattern in those four outcomes, and that’s probably because a rematch doesn’t mean both teams are carbon copies of what they were in the first contest months earlier.

“It’s about the same for the most part,” said Head Coach Todd Bowles of facing a team for the first or second time. “It doesn’t compare because we played [the Eagles] so early in the year. We were still growing, [and] I’m sure they were still growing. You know, playoff time is different, it’s one and done, everybody is nicked up, everybody is hurt, it’s just a matter of who makes the most mistakes.”