Vikings vs Buccaneers: What Are Experts Saying About Tampa Bay?

The Tampa Bay Buccaneers don't need the experts to tell them they're one of the worst teams in the NFL this season.

With the league's worst defense and a 30th-ranked offense, the Bucs have nowhere to go but up. Their last game before the bye week was a loss to the Baltimore Ravens of historic proportions. After allowing 48 points to Joe Flacco and the Ravens, the Bucs had allowed 165 points over four games, the worst four-game stretch in team history, according to the Tampa Bay Times' Rick Stroud.

Though the Bucs defense has been bad since before even Monte Kiffin left, the Bucs have sunk to a new low. Even All-Pro Bucs defensive tackle Gerald McCoy called the Bucs defense "soft" and harped on the defense for "sitting on blocks," per Stroud.

The Bucs are facing the Minnesota Vikings this week, and many questions come to mind. Will the Bucs defense begin to grasp Lovie Smith's defensive scheme? Who will start under center for Tampa Bay? Will Doug Martin and the run game rise to the occasion?

Experts around the league tried answering some of these questions and often faced the same conclusion: The Bucs only have room to improve. Here are what some experts are saying about the Bucs entering their matchup with Minnesota.

Sports Illustrated's Doug Farrar: What Ails the Bucs Defense?

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The Bucs defense hasn't lived up to any of its preseason expectations, and according to Sports Illustrated's Doug Farrar, they should be much farther along in their development.

Farrar's examination of the Bucs defense comes to an obvious and distressing conclusion: The Bucs don't know how to play Lovie Smith's defense. Despite playing a widely used Tampa 2 base defense, the Bucs have yet to execute Smith's model of the Cover 2.

This isn't a terribly surprising deduction. Since Monte Kiffin left the team in 2008, who has taught the Bucs to play defense? Raheem Morris and Jim Bates? Greg Schiano and Bill Sheridan? Each of these coaches failed to field a defense that played with discipline, physicality or sound technique.

It's been years since the Bucs have played a brand of defense that would be considered consistent or reliable. Lovie Smith and pretty much everyone else overestimated the Bucs' ability to quickly acclimate to even a seasoned coach's tutelage.

It could take the rest of the season for the Bucs to actually play tolerable defense. Patience will become a consistent theme for the Bucs defense going forward.

Tampa Tribune's Martin Fennelly: Glennon Should Remain the Starter

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Though Lovie Smith proclaimed Mike Glennon to be "the future" of the Bucs at the quarterback position, he has kept veteran QB Josh McCown in the starter conversation this season despite mostly unsuccessful results.

Tampa Tribune columnist Martin Fennelly advocates keeping Glennon as the starter, though, indications are good that McCown is healthy enough to play after he returned to practice this week, per Roy Cummings. Fennelly wonders if McCown can make some sort of turnaround despite having a worse touchdown-to-interception ratio to Glennon.

Lovie Smith insists the Bucs "don't have a quarterback controversy," per the Tampa Bay Times' Rick Stroud, but he wouldn't name a starter either. While it's not unusual for NFL coaches to withhold even the most obvious of decisions, even allowing the question to arise could raise doubts in the minds of his players.

Glennon clearly outperformed McCown this season. Though he hasn't been spectacular or even all that accurate, Glennon is far better at taking care of the ball than McCown.

Truthfully, neither quarterback is going to take the Bucs offense very far. Given what Tampa Bay has to work with, they would be wiser to stay the course with the quarterback that actually won a game this season over the guy who fumbled, recovered it, and immediately threw an interception in the season opener.

ESPN's Pat Yasinskas: The Bucs Need More from Doug Martin

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Bucs running back Doug Martin has yet to recapture his rookie-year form and is looking like he was merely a flash in the pan. ESPN's Pat Yasinskas believes Martin's struggles this season aren't entirely his fault.

Yasinskas indicates that the poor play of the Bucs' haphazard offensive line is the root of Tampa Bay's struggles running the ball, citing a lack of chemistry along the line. He doesn't let Martin off the hook entirely. With fellow Bucs running back Bobby Rainey averaging 4.9 yards per carry to Martin's 2.9, it may not just be offensive line struggles killing the Bucs run game.

To be fair to Martin, most of Rainey's rush yards came against the St. Louis Rams, who have the 28th-worst run defense in the league, allowing 143 rush yards per game. Rainey was also terrible against the Atlanta Falcons, who are allowing 137 rush yards per game this season. In that Thursday night beatdown, Rainey picked up only 41 yards on 11 carries and lost two fumbles.

While the Bucs offense as a whole is not executing with consistency or precision, the offensive line is the biggest culprit to the lack of run game. Martin is often met at the line of scrimmage by opposing defenders who blow past the outmatched Bucs linemen.

Martin is not a runner who makes a lot of cuts. His production comes from his decisiveness hitting run lanes and bouncing off tacklers in traffic. This season, he hasn't been able to do either as there have been no run lanes opened for him.

The Bucs can expect their run-game woes to continue so long as the offensive line fails to play with cohesion. Martin remains a talented asset on the Bucs offense, but he needs a little help to fulfill the promise he manifested his rookie year.

Fox Sports' Andrew Astleford: The Bucs Have a Chance in the Weak NFC South

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The Bucs are the worst team in the NFC South right now. Fortunately, their division rivals aren't much better, keeping the Bucs in the NFC South title hunt.

Fox Sports' Andrew Astleford shines a light on the Bucs' chances to still take the NFC South this season. According to Astleford, the Bucs' favorable schedule going forward and the struggles of their division rivals could make an unlikely comeback entirely possible.

The Falcons have been trending downward while the Saints and Panthers are mired in mediocrity. Even with 1-5 record, a midseason turnaround in Tampa could capitalize on the struggles elsewhere in the NFC South.

The problem is, the Bucs already lost to every team in the division this year. They were destroyed by Atlanta, blew a good lead in the fourth quarter to New Orleans and were dominated by Carolina in the season opener.

Yes, the Bucs could get their defense to where they expected it be and make strides on offense, but so could the rest of the NFC South. It's actually more likely that Drew Brees will get the Saints offense back on track and Cam Newton could will the Panthers through the rest of the season.

Highlighting how bad the NFC South is as a whole does not change how utterly terrible the Bucs have been this season, nor does it improve their chances of winning out to capture the NFC South title this season.

Minneapolis Star Tribune's Bo Mitchell: The Bucs Secondary Won't Stop the Vikes

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The Bucs face a Minnesota Vikings team similarly struggling with quarterback issues. The difference is, Vikings quarterback Teddy Bridgewater gets to play the Bucs' porous pass defense.

Minneapolis Star Tribune writer Bo Mitchell matches up the Vikings' last-place pass offense against the Bucs' last-place pass defense and finds the Vikings coming out on top. Though rookie QB Bridgewater and the rest of the Vikings passers have combined for only nine touchdowns this season, the Bucs don't have a pass rush to speak of and are playing an outdated Tampa 2 defense.

Mitchell is by no means off base with his conclusion. Ravens QB Joe Flacco looked like Peyton Manning in Baltimore's trouncing of the Bucs despite being, well, Joe Flacco.

Teddy Bridgewater may be a rookie, but he may be the best quarterback taken in the 2014 draft. His ability to quickly and accurately read defenses could exploit many of the same weaknesses Flacco exposed two weeks ago.

Without Adrian Peterson, however, the Vikings lack reliable playmakers on offense. The Bucs could also exploit the poor play of left tackle Matt Kalil to get their pass rush back on track.

The Minnesota game will be a good indication of the progress the Bucs made over the bye. If the results remain consistent with how the Bucs have played so far, they may inadvertently help the Vikings get their offense moving in the right direction.