TAMPA, Fla. _ It is the season within this season.
And the Bucs are already breathing down the Browns' necks.
They're waiting in the wings to replace Cleveland as the team with the longest playoff drought. The Bucs are at 11 and counting. The Browns are up ahead, at 16 seasons, not a sniff of the playoffs since 2002.
But the Bucs show real promise, even with Bruce Arians in the house.
It was against this backdrop that the teams squared off Friday night at Raymond James Stadium in the all-important third meaningless preseason game.
We got our longest look at Jameis Winston and the first-team offense. And we wish we hadn't.
Winston can look good and not good. What else is new? He is already the franchise's all-time touchdown thrower and will become the Bucs' all-time leader in passing yards early this season barring injury, which we were reminded about when Winston was sacked on consecutive plays in the Bucs' first possession and five times overall.
The right side of the line, with Demar Dotson and Alex Cappa, is going to be a problem. The left side might be trouble too if Arians sends everybody out all the time.
Bottom line: Seven first-half possessions, no points, no nothing, Winston went 9 for 19 for 88 yards, with a missed field goal from rookie Matt Gay. Welcome to the long very gray line, kid.
Back to Winston. Arians has been generally happy with his work ethic. But Friday reminded us that while the Bucs moved the ball in the air last season, they didn't score a lot of points, a problem when combined with a defense that surrendered 29 points per game.
Winston surely contributed his share to the problems, with 19 touchdowns and 14 interceptions, but he also had no running game and bad pass blocking. And we still don't know if that is going to change under Arians and offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich, who will call plays instead of Arians. Can't wait to see if that lasts if the Bucs begin piling up losses.
I don't put much into the look of any preseason, good or bad, but I bet Arians began to see reality on Friday. The real tests begin in a few weeks, when it counts.
But what is interesting is the perceived optics of the teams that met Friday night. The Browns have been awful for so long, but so have the Bucs. The Browns have been ridiculously bad during their playoff drought, bottoming out at 0-16 in 2017 and going a phenomenally putrid 4-44 in one three-year stretch.
But they have drafted well, have second-year pro Baker Mayfield at quarterback, Cleveland's very own No. 1 draft pick, incoming Odell Beckham Jr. and a good defensive line led by Myles Garrett. I like the Browns' chances better than I like the Bucs' chances.
All you need to know is that the Bucs worst defeat last season was a win, a 29-26 comeback overtime win over the Browns that made the Bucs 3-3, and put enough bubbles in former head coach Dirk Koetter and eternally optimistic GM Jason Licht to actually think the Bucs had a chance to make the postseason, which they did not.
But it made them hoard players instead of trading them, which was a mistake.
And look at that thin offensive line, which allowed four Cleveland sacks of Winston in no time. This is no way to run a season or an offense. The Bucs are spending $30 million combined on Donovan Smith, Ali Marpet and Ryan Jensen this season, and we're about to find out if Licht throwing money at the same line that couldn't block last season means the problem will go away.
It's preseason and it doesn't matter either way. Good thing for the Bucs and Winston. At least the defense looked good at times, whatever that will mean in a few weeks.
The Browns are gaining on respectability. The Bucs are going in reverse. They might be all alone, worst playoff drought going, after this season. They might not be able to prevent it, especially if it requires blocking.
