Ex-Bucs Quarterback Shaun King: ‘Super Bowl Window Has Closed’ For Tampa Bay

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers may have won the NFC South again this season, but the whole year was a slog, and they were dominated in the wild card round by the Dallas Cowboys.

It was the first pedestrian season since Tom Brady came aboard in 2020, which means the team may want to run it back in hopes of a bounce-back 2023.

Former Buccaneers quarterback Shaun King doesn’t think that’s a good idea. 

The former second-rund pick, who played for Tampa Bay from 1999 through 2003, says Brady’s advancing age means the Bucs are no longer a contender, and stringing it along for another year would be a mistake.

“This group’s Super Bowl window, in my opinion, has closed,” King told Compare.bet. “I would start evaluating what pieces do we have where we can get the most back? I would start stripping this roster down of some of my higher-priced guys that I think still have value, and I would start my rebuild now.”

The Buccaneers have a lot of talented players under contract for 2023, but it may be far-fetched to believe they can get to the same level as the Eagles and 49ers next season.

Tampa Bay finished 2023 with a 8-9 record and were No. 17 in Team DVOA, per Football Outsiders, sitting in the middle of the pack offensively and defensively. 

The Bucs won the Super Bowl after the 2020 season, so the Brady signing ended up being a home run, but King believes the future Hall of Famer is finally nearing the end of the road at age 45.

“Let’s be honest, man,” King said. “Why does everybody beat around the bush? Tom Brady is the most accomplished quarterback at the professional level we’ve ever seen, and nobody in modern football is getting to 10 Super Bowls, and they’re definitely not winning seven. In spite of that, you still should be honest about what he is now. He’s a shell of himself. Especially when he’s encountered with pressure. 

“It happens, man. You get old. You step off the sidewalk and you feel like you jumped off a ten-story building. It happens to everybody. It’s just a part of getting old. Yeah, in spurts he can still make some throws, and, yeah, every second or third game he can have a fourth quarter that makes you remember how great he was. But from start to finish, he’s not the same player. Age is undefeated. If you watch Tom Brady play, when he is under pressure and duress, he is completely out of whack. That’s just the reality of it.”

The Buccaneers were hit hard by injuries and defections on the offensive line this season, which King said was the main reason the passing attack took a nosedive.

“You’ve got an old quarterback that’s definitely not comfortable with pressure, and you’ve lost three of your five starting offensive linemen,” King said. “And then you lose your All-Pro tackle, Tristan Wirfs, for multiple games. There was going to be regression in the pass protection, and at this point in his career it’s too much to overcome. It’s not a criticism. The truth doesn’t have emotions. It’s just the truth.”

Brady has +150 odds to return to the Buccaneers next season, according to DraftKings.

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If he leaves, the Bucs could be in the market for a win-now quarterback because Tampa has a veteran-laden roster, but King doesn’t like that idea, either.

“I wouldn’t bring a Baker Mayfield or Jimmy Garoppolo in this offseason and think I can piece together this thing,” King said. “This run is over. I would strip it apart and figure out which core guys are young enough to build around moving forward and reconstruct it.”

The Bucs have plenty of veterans who would be attractive to contenders, including Pro Bowl-level talents like Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Shaq Barrett.

“I’d see what Shaq Barrett can bring me in (a trade),” King said. “They have guys that are highly paid that I think they can get a second-round pick back for them and salary cap savings. Maneuver this roster and get it a whole lot younger than it currently is.”

Brady has +150 odds to head to the Las Vegas Raiders as a free agent. The San Francisco 49ers have the third-best odds to land him but at distant +750 odds.

King, who resides in Las Vegas, has a feeling how things would end up if the Raiders signed Brady to be their quarterback at age 46.

“I always look at things objectively, so let me look on the positive side,” King said. “It would inject national attention into an organization that right now has none. They would be the topic of every sports talk show. The Raider black jersey would be the highest-selling jersey in the history of the National Football League. Everybody would be going out to get that black Brady jersey with the silver 12. 

“But then midyear next year they would realize they’ve made a terrible mistake. I don’t say that disrespectfully, but the Raiders have the same issue the Bucs have. They don’t have an elite offensive line, so they cannot protect Brady at the level he needs to be protected for where he’s at from an age standpoint. And they have too many holes on defense to allocate a whole bunch of free agent money to the offensive line. I think the Raiders would be better off getting a younger guy that has athleticism and mobility, trying to fix that defense, and then hoping their trio of skill guys — Darren Waller, Davante Adams and Josh Jacobs — can get them to a playoff berth sometime soon.”

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