Never mind the opponent; Bucs kicked the snot out of another team Tom Jones, The Tampa Bay Times, published 18 September 2017 Who cares how lousy the other team was? So what if their quarterback is a bum? So what if the other guys looked like they spent the week watching Football Follies instead of game film? Don't let any of that distract you from the real story: The Bucs finally took the field and kicked the snot out of another team. While all those Screamin' A. Heads on ESPN will shout about how crummy the Bears are, around here, we have something else to talk about: Pardon the interruption, but Tampa Bay might have itself one heck of a football team. Sunday's Bucs game was a blowout, a rout, a beatdown. But this time, it was the Bucs doing the beating. How's that for a change? What an opener. The Bucs won 29-7. It didn't feel that close. You know, maybe there is something to all this preseason Bucs buzz after all. It's only one game. There are 15 more to go. But, wow, that one game was something. "It's good to get a win," tackle Demar Dotson said. "There's a lot of hype with this football team. We got one (victory). We don't have to wait for it." The waiting took less than a half. The Bucs were cruising 26-0 at intermission. Take a photo of that last sentence because that's something you don't see very often in the NFL, let alone with the Bucs. Any doubts about rust after a long layoff because of Hurricane Irma were dismissed in as fine a half as Tampa Bay has played in years. "There's a little bit of unknown every time you get to that first game," coach Dirk Koetter said. "The guys did a good job." Good job? Just good? That seems like an understatement. Come on, Dirk, could you possibly have been any more pleased? Dumb question, apparently. "I can be more pleased," Koetter said while smiling, but not kidding. "I can be a lot more pleased than this. If we played a perfect game, we wouldn't have anything to work on, would we?" Koetter found plenty of nits to pick. The biggest was he didn't like how the Bucs closed out the game. They didn't get a shutout. Their 26-point halftime lead ended up a 22-point victory because the offense mustered only a second-half field goal. In other words, Koetter thought that a 26-0 lead should have resulted in something bigger than a 29-7 victory. Picky picky. "You can't let up," Koetter said. "You got to stay on it. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather be where we are at than the other way. But we got plenty of work to do." Coaches have to stay stuff like that. They don't want their team getting complacent. They don't hand out Lombardi Trophies in September. And this might not be a bad time to point out that the Bucs won last season's opener against the eventual NFC champion Falcons. Tampa Bay lost its next three and missed the playoffs. So you can understand why Koetter doesn't want to get giddy. But there was plenty to like. The defense created three turnovers, including a pick-six from cornerback Robert McClain. The special teams got a takeaway to set up a score. Jameis Winston passed for 204 yards and didn't have a turnover. Mike Evans looked like a monster with seven catches and a touchdown. Any time you beat another NFL team by three touchdowns, it's solid. "This football team? The sky is the limit," linebacker Lavonte David said. "Guys were just itching to get out on the field. So far, so good." More than good. It was really good. And there looks to be plenty more where that came from.