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NFL Dos and Don'ts: Tampa Bay Buccaneers

The Tampa Bay Bucs got the first pick in the draft, which means they were not good. Like, at all.

As we prepare for another year of NFL football, let's take a look back at the highs and lows from 2014 for each team. Welcome to NFL Dos and Don'ts. If you missed one, you can read all our recaps right here.

Do

With a 2-14 record last season, the Tampa Buccaneers earned themselves the first pick of the 2015 NFL Draft and selected Florida State Quarterback Jameis Winston. Put another way, their Do section is going to be…light. We're here to do a job, though, and we're going to get that job done, so let's talk about Mike Evans. The former Aggie had a pretty solid rookie year with 68 receptions for 1,051 yards and 12 touchdowns. Those stats are all the more impressive when you look at this important piece of information:

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[Shudders]

Josh McCown played in parts of 11 games for the Bucs, Mike Glennon in six. Jameis Winston didn't even have to take a snap in a preseason game to earn the starting quarterback job. That Mike Evans was able to have the kind of season he did—you know, like, having highlights from a Bucs game show up on SportsCenter—with the cast of stunt doubles from The Expendables making up the QB depth chart, is remarkable. So, props to you Mike Evans for being the light at the end of the digestive tract that was the 2014 Bucs season. And a special thank you for sticking it to your former teammate after scoring two touchdowns against him in November.

Sure, they lost that game, but you probably already knew that.

Don't

September 18, 2014: The Falcons, who were also not a good football team last year, absolutely destroyed the Bucs 56-14. The Bucs scored in nearly every way imaginable: long run, long passes, interception return, punt return, end around; you name it and the Falcons did it to the Buccaneers. And yet, it's not nearly as bad as what the Bucs did to themselves.

The Buccaneers created a "Women's Movement" called "RED" before the start of the season and it is, let's call it, uninspired. Fan engagement is great and since an NFL team is, above all else, a license to print money, you should definitely grow as many revenue streams as possible. Do I know what a revenue stream is, or if you can even grow individual streams of revenue? No, I do not. But I guarantee someone in an office somewhere has said that before about women and sports and so here we now are with an explainer on the play clock. For the love of God, Don't treat your fanbase like a bunch of morons.

Making fans feel like they are more than walking debit cards is, depressingly, just good business. It's human nature to crave a shared, communal experience, and if you can eat some food and get a buzz going, all the better. Providing this for your fans, and making them feel comfortable—like they know what the hell is going on in the game—will bring them back, or as this RED initiative hopes with women, it will just bring them in the first place. But you've got to mean it. You can't just say "Hey ladies, here's how a play clock works. OK, now let's get back to those recipes you can share on Pinterest for entertaining at home."

That's not fan engagement. That's wanting to sell more people more shit and not really caring how you do it.