How The Saints Gouged The Bucs
October 19th, 2010
Just about every Bucs fan worth his red battle flag has seen by now how Division-II running back Chris Ivory, now the Saints’ top running back, freight-trained the Bucs defense.
It was enough to make Joe throw up ,and it had nothing to do with the quality adult beverages Joe consumed the previous evening. Joe suspects many Bucs fans were equally ill.
It was uglier than an image of Rosie O’Donnell in a private adult film.
Former Bucs defense end Steve White decided to put erasable marker to whiteboard and diagrammed why Ivory ran through the Bucs defense as if it was Missouri Western State University on his blog.
So what do we make of all this? Well first of all aside from Roy Miller getting tossed around on several plays which is unacceptable, we mostly gave up the big yardage because guys weren’t on the details or missed tackles rather than having been physically manhandled. Second of all there are some problems that we are having that are recurring. Our defensive ends aren’t getting underneath kick out blocks like they should and that’s all about technique and using your eyes. That’s something that can definitely be fixed but you have to wonder why it hasn’t been to this point. Thirdly you will notice that aside from the one line stunt, these were plays where the Bucs just lined up in front of the Saints like it was drawn up on a chalkboard. I don’t know that movement or blitzes would have solved all of our problems but I have to wonder when we will at least TRY to start helping ourselves on early downs with a few zone blitzes to give offenses a different look to block.
It was a terrible day for our defense, make no mistake about it, but in watching the replay online I didn’t get the sense that we were physically dominated anywhere but our nosetackle position. The Bucs tried to play a lot of G with Miller which is something I thought might be useful, but with his outside hand down and outside foot back I think he was going to have a hard day regardless. Still you can’t make any excuses, he HAS to play better. Otherwise I’m pretty sure that it won’t be long before Price is out there with the starters. After all if we are going to suck on defense against the run we might as well suck with our rookie 2nd round pick in there getting some good experience.
Something has to be done by the Bucs’ defensive braintrust and has to be done quick. If Bucs fans — and it appears so too does White — think Sunday’s defensive performance was unacceptable, imagine what Steven Jackson could do to this defense in a few days?
Joe assumes Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo is drooling over Sunday’s Saints-Bucs gametape as if someone placed a plate of toasted ravioli and cold Budweiser before him.
October 19th, 2010 at 8:13 am
Agree 200% Roy got pushed around all day. Also agree don’t know what is taking so long for price to break the line up cause he is a 2 round pick we could have used on a de
October 19th, 2010 at 8:47 am
I agree about Roy…especially since I was seeing our star rookie get triple-teamed at times. Roy should have been able to do SOMETHING.
But I look at it like this…it was the Superbowl Champs.
The Superbowl this year will likely be the Saints vs the Steelers, and if that’s the case…I don’t feel so bad losing to them, or getting schooled by them this early in the season.
It exposed areas that need improvement on our team. That’s a good thing this early. The Bucs can work on fixing those weaknesses.
I feel confident that we will beat the Rams, maintaining our winning record.
October 19th, 2010 at 8:54 am
The defense was being gassed on Sunday with hurry up offense first year and second year DTs are going to struggle.Leave GMC in one position so he can play without thinking.Roy Miller was manhandled by a pissed off OLINE who every one has criticized there play this season.Cincy definately exposed us,Raheem and Olson should have been better prepared for this week…I have said it a MILLION TIMES FIRE MANGURIAN!!! Since he has taken over our One stength has been terrible…We have the talent.We would give our young DLINE some room to grow if we could run the ball.If speacial teams was struggling this bad we would have fired Biasica(he is the best coach we have why I use him as the example)so why is Mangurian still here after last year????
October 19th, 2010 at 8:55 am
No doubt Jackson is a lot better than Ivory and Benson however his Oline is no where near the quality of our last two opponents imo so I am going to stay optimistic about this weekends game.
October 19th, 2010 at 9:03 am
While great running backs can still be great with mediocre lines, great lines can make meciocre backs look great. I’m not saying the Saints line is great, but against a horrible D-line like ours they looked great, which is why my grandma could have had 100 yards rushing. Ask Mike Shannahan. He continues to plug in anyone at HB year after year and make them look great.
October 19th, 2010 at 9:58 am
The Saints use 2 tightends to run block. That is just crazy. I wish we could be that crazy. Maybe we will draft some with our high draft picks.
October 19th, 2010 at 10:02 am
Steven Jackson is gonna run all over us, Sam Bradford is gonna pass all over us, and Tampa will be humiliated in our stadium again. The Rams just beat the mighty Chargers, Tampa will be a cake walk for them. The only positive that will come from this scenario is it may mark the beginning of the end of the Raheem era ? The Glazers are not selling seats, and Mark Dominick wants to keep his job, so Raheem will be the scapegoat.
A lot of Football is mental. HOW do you draft stars from winning college programs, and expect them to buy into a GM and Coach with NO NFL track record of winning ?
Even Caddy is saying something is wrong.
October 19th, 2010 at 10:06 am
Ought to be a good ball game Sunday. Rams and bucs are pretty similar in a lot of ways. Young QB’s, second yeard hc’s, each picked up some unexpected wins and also have gotten waxed.
Bradford v. Freeman is enough to get me to CITS.
Hopefully we get those “details” in run defense worked out.
October 19th, 2010 at 10:06 am
Our run defense was “exposed” during the Pittsburgh game. Our run defense was “exposed” during the Cincinnati game. Our run defense was “exposed” during the Saints game.
That is what has been said for three weeks now. It can only be “exposed” once. Cincinnati and the Saints EXPLOITED our run defense. Hell our run defense was exposed last year and teams will exploit that glaring weakness until it is fixed.
Expose – to make known
Exploit – to make productive use of
Teams will run all day until those guys on the field step up and stop them. I hope it starts this week and we do not allow another 100 yard rusher the rest of the season.
October 19th, 2010 at 10:12 am
Joe says:
“It was uglier than an image of Rosie O’Donnell in a private adult film.”
It was a bad performance, but I can’t picture anything worse than Rosie…
And Go Lightning! 4-1
October 19th, 2010 at 11:25 am
Richinnc…You are right. I hope they tighten up as well. The team will get better, and they will have those steps back like last week. Pleanty of games to play, but you are right…They are being exploited.
October 19th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
I just hope they start playing more and thinking less. Use their natural abilities. They can think before the snap, know where they’re supposed to be. After the snap, if they get pushed out of their gap, don’t think, get off the block and make a play from where they are. Obviously, I’d rather have them in their gap, but they’ve gotta get off blocks to make tackles, no matter where they are. I’d like to see more “get off the ball” and “push up the field” from the D-line. Move things into their backfield, make them change directions sooner. It slows the back down changing direction, gives time for others to make the tackle. Think before the snap, but after that, play the game, play hard, fight off blocks and tackle.
October 19th, 2010 at 3:36 pm
So i can’t understand the x’s and o’s of what Steve White is saying here but the gist of it is- the coaching is bad, Raheem’s scheme is not working. Im still not ready to abandon Raheem yet, but unfortunately the defensive scheme he has started this year with(which has significant changes from last year when we saw some improvement after he took over)has proven to be another BIG mistake. Along with the BIG mistake of not finding a serviceable back who can run and protect sometime in the offseason. The guy has young players believing they can win which is great, but its starting to get old watching Raheem make every mistake possible while he finds himself as a coach. I hope he really gets it together in the next few weeks and has the guts to abandon whats not working. He did so last year(Bates\Jagodzinski) but the defensive scheme this year is his baby and it will be harder to say “yeah my scheme wasn’t working” than “yeah Jim Bates scheme wasn’t working”.
October 19th, 2010 at 5:05 pm
That’s not what I got from it, gitarlvr. A couple of those plays, the players had good fits, but missed the tackles. Another couple plays the DE weren’t getting under the kick out blocks, which either shows bad technique (possibly coaching, possibly the player not doing what they’ve been taught) or they were lazy. Miller also got thrown around a couple times by some pretty good Guards. Maybe it’s the scheme, maybe it’s the coaching, maybe it’s the players. I wouldn’t be surprised that it’s the players when it comes to DE. Steve has pointed out for weeks that Stylez doesn’t use an inside move. I would figure the position coach has worked with him on using an inside move, but come game time Stylez just doesn’t feel comfortable enough with it to actually use it. Player or coach? I’d have to say player…
October 19th, 2010 at 5:56 pm
Read the whole post on White’s blog BamBam ,he makes it seem like the scheme is just plain broken, the 3-3-5, making your rookie DT play DE, and a whole host of other things like not blitzing properly, not running the right pass rush games, not using Quincy Black properly. With out coming right out and saying it he is basically calling Raheem’s scheme right now crap. Maybe Steve White doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He is not an NFL coach. But if he does, then it would seem Raheem is just making things that much harder on this young defense with his excessively gimmicky scheme. And that is what the 3-3-5 is. Its a gimmick to be used occasionally to throw offenses a curveball. Right now Raheem is using it so much its almost the base defense. That is clearly a failed experiment and needs to stop now.
October 19th, 2010 at 7:25 pm
I do read his blog regularly. Although he disagrees with some things the team is doing (shifting GMC, using 3-3-5 so much, etc.), he does seem to like what coach Morris has been doing for the most part, with a few disagreements. Most criticism is directed towards each players performance. I’ve even asked if he thought it was the player, the position coach, the scheme/head coach and he’s said he can’t say which it is, being an outsider looking in (although a very informed outsider). He’s not there in practices, so doesn’t know what coaches are seeing or doing.