The QB Blasts: Seeking A Break In The Clouds
January 17th, 2010
Former Bucs QB Jeff Carlson
By JEFF CARLSON
JoeBucsFan.com analyst
Former Bucs quarterback Jeff Carlson (1990 & 1991) writes the weekly QB Blast column here at JoeBucsFan.com. Joe is ecstatic to have him firing away. Carlson has TV gigs in the Bay area and trains quarterbacks of all ages via his company, America’s Best Quarterback.
Watching the Cardinals and Packers toss the ball around the yard last weekend was magnificent to watch, if you are a fan of the forward pass. I don’t think a Buccaneers’ game will ever resemble that and that is OK, because there is more than one way to win in the NFL.
But, as I watched that game, I reminisced the events of the lost season of 2009 in Tampa Bay and am looking for the break in the clouds to get interested for next year.
Sure the Bucs won two games in December, even beating the top seed in the NFC, but I didn’t think that Saints team from December would be the same one we saw this weekend. And it surely wasn’t.
To get my bearings, I went back to January of ’09 when someone realized that Jon Gruden’s 9-7 team, his offense and Monte Kiffin’s defense weren’t good enough to bring back. The thought was that the Tampa 2 was a relic and Monte’s monster of the past wasn’t going to get it done in the future and needed to be changed to Jim Bates’ pressured bump and run.
The offense was again led by an aging QB that struggled with his health from the first days of training camp. This too had to change.
The team’s management went with the young-and-excited approach and reached for the inexperienced and inexpensive option. About a week before the first game, the new head coach sacked the new offensive coordinator for the QB coach, who sacked the new offense for Gruden’s old offense to be run by a new QB who had never been in Gruden’s offense before.
By midseason, the new head coach had decided that the new defensive coordinator’s schemes didn’t work and went back to Monte’s old defense to find that old spark that didn’t work and was outdated in ’08.
So,, for 2010 the team is back running Gruden’s old offense (and still paying Gruden for not coaching it) and running Monte’s old defense as it tries to regain the magic that Gruden and Kiffin once shared.
The only real difference now is the Bucs are married to their quarterback instead of just dating.
January 17th, 2010 at 10:49 am
Where was the insight in this article? This is something even casual Bucs fans are already aware of.
January 17th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
To say the Saints that played yesterday were not the same team that played the Bucs is ridiculous. The Cardinals defense was horrible in Greenbay, and horrible again against the Saints. The Saints only look amazing if the other team allows them to. The Bucs defensive effort against the Saints was the standout performance of a miserable season. We didn’t allow the Saints to look amazing and we won. Trying to belittle it by saying the Saints didn’t play well is bullshit.
Also, we didn’t choose to dump Monte’s defense. He quit on us.
January 17th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
JDouble, I call B-S on you brother. The Saints showed up and won the game yesterday, as they did for the first 3/4 of the season as a focused and attack-first offense. They are a “pick-your-poison” offense with a healthy Reggie Bush running like he know how and the 3 WR’s giving the secondary fits. Saying they only win with what the defense gives them is belittling an amazingly talented offense. Don’t heap the praise on the Bucs defense too heavy either, after a 17-0 lead late in the season of a game that they did not need to win, they couldn’t get the mojo back in the second half. I give the Bucs defense credit for keeping them scoreless in the second half, but let’s be real. More B-S is saying the defense sucked down the stretch in ’08 because Monte Kiffin quit on the defense is retarded. He called bad defensive plays because he “quit”? Shame on the players (Brooks, Barber and company) for not winning in December when they only needed one win.
Year of Bucs Fan: Sorry for not being deep enough for you this week, but do you remember the whole point of what I just went through with JDouble? The Tampa 2 was worthless and a thing of the past like the Bears’ “46” of the 1980’s. But, after an off-season of “fixing” things and bulking up to play a better defense suited to stop all the “new” offenses. In one week of practice, they turned back the clock to a retro defense was all that was needed to get the team’s defense back on track.
They exchanged the architects for their apprentices, hoping to accomplish more and got much less, embarrassingly less at times. So the team moves forward with exactly the same concepts on both sides of the ball in 2010, hoping that Josh Freeman is basically the single change that will make all the difference.
If you want insight on something specific, just let me know.
January 17th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
I concur with Jeff’s analysis. Same old shit different day. What happened to originality in schemes or using and running the squads based on the talent level and abilitites of the players you have.
January 17th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Year round Bucs fan says, I don’t think the defense after Raheem took over was that bad. I believe they ranked close to the top ten D’s during that time. The Tampa 2 employed under Raheem, though it wasn’t the only D he ran, was effective. It isn’t necessarily a bad system. The system started falling apart for Monte IMO, not because the team quit on him or he quit on the team, or it is an outdated scheme. I think that Brooks, while great, was older slower and playing hurt. Several other defensive players were also either aging or just not very good. The Tampa 2 needs team speed, old slow guys need not apply. So yes, Morris is running a SIMILAR defensive scheme, but hopefully with younger faster players. I think our success or lack thereof, rests more on the quality of the players in the scheme, not the scheme itself.
If Monte had not taken the job in Tennessee, do you think they would have told him not to run the Tampa 2? He left us, not the other way around. I think the reason they changed from the Tampa 2, is they bought into Bates who was one of the few D coaches left to choose from when the turnover began. That was a mistake. Glad to see that Morris had the sack to fire him and take over.
January 17th, 2010 at 7:44 pm
Similar schemes, different coaches. To develop into a better play caller than Gruden is not a major stretch.
To raise up a younger and better conditioned D, that creates more pressure is also something different.
Good work Jeff. I’m a fan 🙂
January 18th, 2010 at 10:26 am
I have to agree with Jeff on this one. Not much insight to write about the Bucs during the playoffs. Nice article jeff.