Inside Football At 5-5 young Bucs are th

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Break up the Bucs.In what has been, at times, a baffling and bizarre NFL season, the rapid ascent of the has to be way up there on the list of shockers. Just think back to Week 1, and how the , and their rookie quarterback, , destroyed Tampa from start to finish. It wasnt all that long ago.And now, here we stand with the playoff run about to begin after Thanksgiving, and its and the Bucs who have quietly become one of the best stories in the league. Sundays complete and utter dismantling of the free-falling Eagles in Philadelphia will surely grab some attention -- finally -- but the reality is this team has been making strides for weeks, as noted in this space, and at 5-5 they are right in the thick of the NFC wild-card race.The latest from SportsLineThis was a team many thought might be in contention for the first overall pick, again, as training camps wound down. And now, only nine teams in the NFL have more wins than the Bucs right now. They are above .500 against division foes and within the conference, and they have won three of their past four games and have nearly tripled their win total from 2014 already. After Sundays spanking of the Eagles, the Bucs have scored 236 points, nearly matching their total of 277 from last season. They have a franchise quarterback in place, they have rediscovered a power run game and they have a defense that has Albert Huggins Jersey made steady strides after the implosion of a year ago.Coach Lovie Smith has upgraded his coaching staff markedly on the offensive side of the ball and this team has been competitive in every game since that Week 1 blowout lo s to the Titans. They have figured out how to win some close games, they have learned to take advantage of opponents with limited quarterbacks (like and in recent weeks), and they have displayed an ability to shrug off adversity. After that Week 1 beatdown, there was a brutal lo s at Washington a month ago when the Bucs blew a huge late lead. Had they held on to that game, theyd really be knocking on the postseason door right now. As it stands, they have a favorable schedule down the stretch: at the Colts, hosting the Falcons and , at the , hosting the Bears, before finishing on the road against a Panthers team that may have already clinched a first-round bye.I actually think this group can hang around and give the Tampa fans some meaningful late December football for the first time in a long time. Sundays pummeling of Chip Kelly -- a man who if you recall once agreed to coach the Bucs and then later reneged, resulting in the desolation of the Greg Schiano era -- sent a me sage that this team can get it done against the legion of middling teams that comprise much of the NFL in 2015. This must have served as another confidence boost Ken Crawley Jersey for a young team that has struggled to merely win consecutive games in recent years.They suffocated the Eagles for 60 minutes on both sides of the ball. There is no other way to put it. Winston was a dervish, continually converting on third-and-forever, to sing five TD pa ses to five different teammates and moving Marquez Callaway Jersey the pocket expertly. He delivered fastballs to the hands and perfectly lofted lobs into space when need be, and his progre s from week to week has been substantial. The respect and admiration his teammates have for him is evident and he and have found the kind of chemistry that could lead this team to big things down the road. Smith has made some baffling decisions at times, but clearly has faith in this unit, as evidenced by going for it on fourth-and-one after the Eagles had cut the Bucs lead to 21-14, with picking up more tough yardage between the tackles to move the chains. That led to another Winston scoring pa s.The Bucs came out of the half, collected the kickoff and held the ball for nearly 10 minutes of the third quarter, with Winston making third-and-eight and third-and-16 look easy before made an acrobatic effort to get to a 50/50 ball for yet another touchdown pa s.The Bucs racked up 283 yards on the ground (at a whopping 6.7 yards per carry) and they held the ball for 36 minutes. They had Kellys long-suffering offense looking even more inept than usual with a bevy of three-and-outs including a stretch of three in a row in the first half when the Bucs took the game over. Winston, who has displayed a nose for the end zone when keeping the ball and running with it, had by far his greatest day as a pro and one that speaks to the kind of substantial potential he has. Over the past six games, Winston has completed 110 of 181 pa ses (61 percent) Jordan Miller Jersey for 1,440 yards (8 yards per attempt) with nine touchdowns and just two interceptions, for a rating of 97.8. He looks the part in clutch situations, is finding ways to extend drives, and is spreading the ball around to seemingly anyone the Bucs dre s who is eligible to catch a pa s. If you havent given them a look, I suggest you do. In a year this watered down, this team has at least a few more wins in it, and could easily finish above .500. That alone would be quite an accomplishment.Romo to the rescueThe didnt take long to adopt s spirit and mentality. It basically started as soon as the game did, in a driving rain storm, with Romo somehow making a pa s out of his own end zone with his left hand. You know, the one attached to the broken clavicle that kept him out two months. That one play set the tone, and Romo found a rhythm as the game went on, willing his team to its first win since September.Look out. His return does change pretty much everything for this team. And it does relegate jokers like to the back burner. Romo will bring out the best in from week to week. He went around that locker room all of last week making sure his guys had not lost hope and that they were still fired up. He has implored the Cowboys that they can still run he table and still make the playoffs. In a lousy NFC East where the Eagles and Redskins got crushed on Sunday and the were on the bye, the Cowboys are very much alive if they can win their divisional games. This offense will get better each week, the running game will continue to evolve as more attention must be paid to the quarterback and pa s catchers, and Romo is an elite leader. His presence alone is calming and gives teammates hope. If Trevor Penning Jersey they find a way to beat the Panthers -- Romo has fared pretty well against unbeatens in the past -- then you better believe that the rest of the teams in this division will be looking over their shoulders and fretting.Osweiler comes up big in debutThat was a very impre sive road performance by . He was composed and patient and looked very comfortable within the framework of Gary Kubiaks offense. The bootlegs and waggles suited him just fine, Denvers run game was excellent for a change (the linemen and backs seemed to be playing their backside off for the youngster) and if Osweiler keeps producing at anything close to what we saw Sunday, then is going