Jones Has To Be Less “Invisible”
October 27th, 2010
While certainly not calling for the Bucs to farm out the strong safety job to Sabby Piscitelli, former Bucs defensive end Steve White is stating the need for change at the position.
In his weekly, The Good, The Bad & The Ugly column on his personal blog, starting strong safety Sean Jones falls into the Bad column for his play against the Rams.
Sean Jones: If you would have told me before the game that our starting Strong Safety would only have 1 tackle and 1 assist against the Rams and running back Steven Jackson I would have told you that you were nuts. But that’s exactly what happened. I can’t say that it all falls on Jones though because one thing that I’ve noticed about our defense is that they rarely line up our safties in the box when we want to have an 8 man front. Instead the safties usually roll into the box on the snap. I understand the need to disguise the coverages at times but I’m not a fan of doing it as much as the Bucs do it because I think it makes it harder for the safties to get their correct run fits on the run. But even having said that I just don’t understand how Jones could be that invisible against a running back that went for over 100 yards on us.
Some how, some way that has to change right away.
Maybe Jones’ back is the problem. It did cause him to miss nearly the entire Bengals game, which featured Sabby’s late-game heroics.
Joe routinely sees Jones taking bad angles and just not looking like the aggressive hitter he was in the preseason and early in the regular season.
Make no mistake, Joe is not calling for Sabby. That won’t happen. But Jones desperately needs to step it up. Has he made a big play this season?
October 27th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Maybe the day that stylez g and moore start playing good football, specially since white is fresh for the lack of 100% effort practices, the rest of the team can feed of that and play better. White, Moore, Trueblood and Caddy are the ones that should be bench; Miller is borderline bencheable.
October 27th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
No he hasn’t made a big play, but no one should really expect him to. Thats why Philly let him walk. He was nothing special. Not horrible but not a guy who ever made an impact for them. Never any reason to believe he would be more than that here. If Sabby starts he will make more impact plays but you will have to live with his WTF? plays too. Definitely neither one is the long term answer.
October 27th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
We were looking for someone to not give up the big play. He provides that – stability. No, he’s not lights out fantastic, but did we really think he would be? The goal was consistency and a stop gap until we can more adequetly fill that position. I’ll take “ok” over “dammit Sabby!” any day.
October 27th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
I know i’m probably going to get crucified here, but I view Sabby somewhat like Talib…..he is going to give up the occasional big play, but he is also going to make the occasional game changer. Sabby is also younger and more physically gifted than Jones…..I guess I wouldnt mind seeing Sabby get another shot.
Keep in mind, Sabby only has one full year (last) under his belt, he made “PLENTY” of stupid rookie mistakes, but I do think that he has improved and at this point is Jones really better??? Put your Sabby hate aside for a moment….im not sure if Jones is?
October 27th, 2010 at 2:33 pm
No, he has not. Better than Sabby- yes. Great – not so far
October 27th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
@ Steve from Oregon
“[Sabby] is going to give up the occasional big play, but he is also going to make the occasional game changer”
You are not too far from the truth about Sabby. Sabby will give up the big play most of the time and occasionally make the game changing play. That’s why he is starting.
October 27th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
@ Steve from Oregon
“[Sabby] is going to give up the occasional big play, but he is also going to make the occasional game changer”
You are not too far from the truth about Sabby. Sabby will give up the big play most of the time and occasionally make the game changing play. That’s why he is starting.
October 27th, 2010 at 3:27 pm
I’d like to see Grimm at SS and Lynch at FS. Every, including me, assumes Lynch is just a solid back up that looks good in preseason, but you never really know untill you give a guy a shot. We already know Sabby is horrible, and Jones is invisible…why not give the guy a shot?
October 27th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
JDouble…I agree in giving Lynch a shot…has looked good when out there; however, I know im the minority, but Im not ready to say that Sabby is horrible based on one year….plenty of players have struggled their first year only to develop into solid players….but….who knows…I trush in Coach Morris to put the best guy out there.
October 27th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
@Steve I’ in the same minority with you. Sabby should be given the oportunity to start in place of Jones. Morris is the one that should be sitting on the bench, far far away!