TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Bucs players and coaches have used the word “resiliency” a good amount lately in describing their ability to navigate the ups and downs of their season, but Offensive Coordinator Byron Leftwich had a different take on their regular season journey.

“It didn’t feel that way,” Leftwich said. “It just felt like we were fighting every week. It felt like we were fighting every week for a win and we were in a battle every week. None of them came easy this year – the wins or the losses. Nothing was easy for us. Sometimes you have years like this in this league and I think it’s good for players and it’s good for coaches because I think we all grew. I think our players got better. I think we as coaches got better. We were faced with a lot of situations that we’ve never been faced with in the past with this group.”

One of the ways they grew was by finding ways to win, no matter who was in the game. Injuries at nearly every position meant countless different line-ups along the way. But here the Bucs are in the postseason, with a much better outlook on the injury front.

“It’s just tough,” said Bucs linebacker Lavonte David. “Injuries are a part of the game, but just having a revolving door of different guys you’re working with and trying to understand who you’re working with and how they play the game and stuff like that. I believe this is probably the first time since the first couple of weeks where we’ve all been on the field with each other. And you’ve seen what was happening when we were playing when everybody was together. We were playing at a high level so now we have a chance to get everybody back so hopefully, we can pick up where we left off from there. It’s definitely good to have those guys back and we’re definitely excited.”

“This is probably as healthy as we’ve been really since OTAs,” Leftwich said. “We were banged up in OTAs so it’s good to have our guys out there.”