“He’s Astonishing Now”
December 28th, 2010
Chatting on The Raheem Morris Show yesterday on WDAE-AM 620, the Bucs’ head coach didn’t spare any love for his new beast of a running back.
Raheem, the defensive coordinator, said he watched tape of the offense first after the game and Blount’s “superhero” antics were a reason why.
“I don’t know if it’s the first time [he hurdled a tackler] at home. It’s the first time he cleared the guy. You know, he had the flying whatever you call it thing against Carolina. He had the jump-over-guy against Pittsburgh early.
“He’s astonishing now. He gets to the second level of the defense. You got to make a decision whether you’re going to cut him, whether you’re going to wrap-tackle him, whether you’re going to take him on with Blount force, no pun intended. You got to make a decision. Those decisions become harder has he’s running down the field free.
“I can guarantee you he’s not thinking about [hurdling guys] when he’s jumping over people. He’s just reacting. You know, he’s a good runner. When he gets in the open field he’s big, he’s fast, he has all types of unique superhero type traits.”
Blount has seen significant action in 10 games, and the only team that could honestly say they stuffed him would be Atlanta. He broke a 21 yard run there but finished with 46 yards on 13 carries.
Joe hopes the Bucs make the Saints prove they can stop Blount on Sunday.
December 28th, 2010 at 12:20 pm
No reason Rah shouldn’t follow the same game plan this sunday as the last: “let 5 win the game”. Whether you let Blount run wild before or after 5 starts to loosen up the saints secondary, his choice but it has to happen.
December 28th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
The big thing the Bucs have to do is realize they are an offense-oriented team now. They need to be one of those teams that concerns themselves with scoring points, not running clock. The defense is plain bad.
(When are you going to write the post about how the real reason they played so well this weekend was that Charlie Whitehurst is TERRIBLE?)
December 28th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Joe here,
@Nicholas – You’re basically contradicting yourself saying the Bucs are an offense-first team but they only played well because Charlie Whitehurst sucks.
December 28th, 2010 at 12:47 pm
I must have been in the restroom when Whitehurst was playing defense. I didn’t catch that.
December 28th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
I’ll be very disappointed if the Bucs/Atlanta and/or New Orleans don’t play at least once on Sunday or Monday night next year.
December 28th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Nicholas I agree that the Bucs defense is playing pretty poorly. When your defense plays poorly you want to keep your OFFENSE on the field as long as possible, chewing up the clock – ESPECIALLY against Drew Brees!
I had Freeman on my fantasy team last week and was rewarded handsomely but I’m benching him this week. The Bucs are going to have to use their Blount instrument if they want to win.
December 28th, 2010 at 2:57 pm
The defensive stats for the Saints certainly don’t match the game I saw last night…
While their defense is ranked 10 spots better than ours – the strength of their defense seems to be stopping the run.
our passing defenses are nearly identical – and not very good.
The Saints have no running game to speak of – so it would seem to me that we need to load up LaGarrette and hit them with some Blount Force Trauma in an effort to keep Drew Brees off the field – or until it becomes obvious that the running game isn’t working – maybe offset Blount with the Cadillac.
Regardless, we should continue to let Freeman sling it – with only six INT’s, he deserves his opportunity for a gunfight at the OK Corral!
December 28th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
with enough carries he can easily be a top 10 RB, if not top 5. Blount is a star in tha making. Uncanny ability 4 a man with that size and speed 2 add with good vision.
December 28th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Nathan Wonsley comes to mind ….enough of the reckless hurdlering…#27
December 28th, 2010 at 11:51 pm
RastaMon – Nate Wonsley was like 5′ 2″ – and his career ended due to a neck injury on a kick-off return.
…at 6’2″ and nearly 2 fiddy…LaGarrette would have to lose a hundred pounds, a foot of heigth and start returning kicks – and then MAYBE we’d have something to worry about!
As it is – the linbackers, corners and safeties trying to stop him have more to worry about!!
Did you see the tackle Milloy was loading up? Anyone else watch the replay and wonder what would have happened if Blount hadn’t decided to hurdle Milloy? Because I think they would have had to scrape him (Milloy) off the field!