After watching the Tampa Bay Buccaneers get trounced by the New England Patriots at Wembley, it's hard to ignore their prospects of following the 2008 Detroit Lions as the NFL's latest 0-16 team. Here's why.

1 These Bucs are young: The Buccaneers lost all of their veteran running backs - the key to successes of the past - when Mike Alstott and Warrick Dunn left the team. They haven't recovered. Against the Pats, the running game was anaemic at best. Derrick Ward led the team in rushing - with just 48. Next year might see them draft a top running back - but they need a quarterback too. Speaking of quarterback, the game at Wembley was a bit of bad luck for Tampa. Starting QB Josh Johnson may have made his fair share of mistakes - like overthrowing and throwing it wide of receivers - but his catchers dropped their fair share of balls, too. Oh, and he also threw three interceptions - the first of which went back for a touchdown. Johnson isn't as speedy as we anticipated out of the pocket, and despite the offensive line holding up pretty well - they only gave up one sack against the Pats, it was a struggle. Josh Freeman, who replaced Johnson, wasn't a lot better. Freeman - who has the better arm of the two - is just slow.

2 The Bucs have no defense: The major characteristic of the New England loss - and one of the big reasons why we think Tampa Bay could well go 0-16 this year - is that it was extraordinary how many tackles they missed. It wasn't difficult for Brady keep throwing completions, but Tampa simply couldn't stop his receivers. They did shut down the run fairly well, but pocket rocket Wes Welker proved unstoppable.

3 The schedule from here on in is nasty: Because the Buccaneers don't play the equally woeful St Louis Rams, a horrible schedule - with no breaks - looms for the Buccanneers. They play Green Bay, Miami, unbeaten New Orleans, Atlanta, Carolina, the New York Jets, Seattle, New Orleans (again) and finally Atlanta. The winnable game is Carolina and possibly Seattle if the Seahawks have nothing to play for. Otherwise.....

OTHER WEMBLEY SNIPPETS

* New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft thinks that there will be an NFL franchise in England within 10 years. He also liked the idea of more teams playing over here. But when we asked him if the Pats would give up a home game, he smiled and gave us the look that said: "Not a prayer".

* Kraft was also happy to see so many Patriot jerseys on show. Just goes to show what signing a GQ model who wins football games and dates supermodels does for a franchise!

* Brandon Merriweather, former student at the University of Miami, asked us not to remind him of the still-painful overtime loss to rival Clemson on Saturday night. "Oh man, why did you have to bring that up?" he said.

* Welker thinks that Jordan Shipley, the speedy wide receiver/punt returner currently lighting up college football at Texas, has a future in the NFL. "He's good," Welker said.

* American NFL fans don't seem too happy about the prospect of having either an NFL team or the Super Bowl possibly being in London. The Super Bowl got a shake of the head from a number of people we talked to.