Do the Buccaneers have a behavior problem?

By Chelena Goldman | Last updated Sep 21, 2022 2:05 PM ET

Typically, it's the teams that aren't playing well that start acting out on the sidelines. But that doesn't appear to be the case for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who lead the NFC South with a 2-0 record but have been displaying some rather bad behavior on their sidelines recently.

This isn't like last season when Antonio Brown was in the spotlight for his solo antics. Sunday's Week 2 rumble against the Saints in New Orleans featured multiple members of the team -- including one former head coach -- behaving in an unsportsmanlike manner. Is this team in need of a disciplinary makeover?

The main focus has been on former head coach Bruce Arians being down on the sidelines during Sunday's 20-10 win when he should have been sitting up in the press box where he had an assigned seat. Not only was Arians, now an assistant to general manager Jason Licht, in the wrong place but he also instigated an altercation between players on the field.

The incident has led to Bucs wide receiver Mike Evans being suspended for one game and Arians receiving a warning from the league about his role in the whole ordeal. But that wasn't the only episode on Tampa Bay's sidelines that day.

There was also the matter of quarterback Tom Brady chucking his tablet to the ground as if it insulted his mother -- an action which he apparently does more often than most.

Brady issued a ho-hum apology and Microsoft joked that their tablets can handle being thrown around. But the incident lumped in with everything else that transpired on the sidelines that day doesn't make this incident look like much of a joke at all.

For a team that has started the season off with a winning record, the Bucs aren't acting like a team with any composure. While a couple of isolated incidences probably wouldn't raise many red flags, this start to Tampa Bay's season appears to be revealing that the team -- and some of its higher-ups, in Arians' case -- is having trouble behaving like a professional organization.

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