“Get It Through Your Thick Skulls”
September 25th, 2012
Joe loves the passion and true love of the Bucs that Justin “The Commish” Pawlowski brings to his commentary during the Gary and The Commish Show on 98.7 FM each weekday.
The Commish bleeds pewter and red, and he bled orange going back to his days as an oversized infant in Tampa 30 years ago.
So it’s no surprise that The Commish still has smoke poring from his ears when he thinks about the Bucs’ playcalling against Dallas on Sunday. And that’s the reason why today he was bellowing through the airwaves, “Get it through your thick skulls!”
Commish was absolutely enraged that Mike Sullivan and company didn’t take repeated shots down the field. And not because Dallas was down to playing two backup safeties, but primarily because the replacement officials are calling all kinds of pass interference penalties this season and the Bucs repeatedly were drawing man-to-man coverage on the outside.
Per The Commish, it’s just criminal foolishness that the Bucs didn’t look to capitalize on that opportunity.
Joe finds the angle of the replacement refs intriguing. But even without that, it was mind-boggling that the Bucs didn’t do more downfield. All those first- and second-down runs should have set up at least a few more deep shots.
September 25th, 2012 at 12:23 pm
I agree with the issues in Sullivan’s play calling. With Carr being moved to safety in the Cowboy’s nickle package, we should have been lining up with 3 WRs more times than not on Sunday, which would have benefited both the pass and the run. The passing game, as it would have taken the Cowboy’s best corner off of the Bucs’ best WR. The running game, as there would be an undersized safety lined up, and an off-tackle play away from the LBs, would have likely matched Carr up against a player like Lorig or Stocker, which I would take either of those two blocking against Carr any day of the week.
September 25th, 2012 at 12:25 pm
Totally forgot about the backup safeties in the game. *facepalm*
September 25th, 2012 at 12:29 pm
uhmm Demarcus Ware says if you can’t block him on a 3 step drop, how are you gonna on a 5 or 7 step drop back ??
September 25th, 2012 at 12:29 pm
Eh idk about this. Claiborne and Carr are damn good corners. and Jenkins is not bad himself. I think we just faced a really good D and did not match up to the test. I anticipate a better game against the redskins who don’t sport too much in the secondary.
September 25th, 2012 at 12:47 pm
rap and gavster have good points. it would not have made a difference.
they need to devise an offense for freeman with just one WR, cause thats all he looks at.
maybe he needs glasses?
has anyone given him the wonderlik test?
maybe our WR’s need taco bell logo’s on their jerseys?
meh, probably just still sore from the conditioning test…
September 25th, 2012 at 12:47 pm
If nothing else… You have to, at the very least, give your team a chance to win. I felt we did not try to win that game. I could not imagine the confidence lost in the new coordinator by his players. Players know “stupidity” when they see it. Freeman may want to audible into another play if this mess presents itself again. A player can generally justify an audible without seeming defiant.
September 25th, 2012 at 12:50 pm
jfro would rather have the blame fall on sully than man up and make an adjustment…..what did they say…he had 5 audibles??? should have been more like 20!!!! hell, thats all eli and peyton do. eli was @ the line calling out LB’s, changing the play and RUNNING the offense on EVERY play!!
5 audibles …really? what about reading the D….pointing to the blitzers etc, etc…..
September 25th, 2012 at 12:52 pm
oh, and what about our center….he pokes his head up, then hikes…every time. the can T off as soon as they see him look up, cause they know…he looks up, then back down and snaps it immediately
September 25th, 2012 at 12:55 pm
Justin better shutup and close his yap. This is rutgers football he doesn’t like 3-4 wr sets. This is ground and pound. If your not running it 20+ times and getting 2-3 yards a pop up the middle your not doing it right and need to do it again until it’s. This isn’t the patriots or packers or eagles sissy offenses. This is rutgers ball!!!
*facepalm*
September 25th, 2012 at 12:56 pm
I may be one of the few…but I’m not one bit worried.
September 25th, 2012 at 1:05 pm
I’m still irritated that we didn’t run any significant motions, toss\sweep plays, rollouts or 4 and 5 WR sets.
WE DIDN’T EVEN TRY THEM.
September 25th, 2012 at 1:05 pm
.
September 25th, 2012 at 1:05 pm
The deep ball was open all day long, just like last week against the Giants, and to a lesser extent against Carolina. The fact is teams are going to crowd the line and underneath routes until Freeman shows he is willing to go deep and beat teams that way.
Forget the hamster, the Bucs need to air it out this week, go for the jugular. Use the pass to set up the run and underneath routes.
Oh, and how many balls did Benn catch last week? Or is this just another offensive coordinator that can only get him the ball on screens?
September 25th, 2012 at 1:15 pm
@Pete
count me in that few as well, the Bucs could just as easily be 3-0. There is no QUIT in this team, and Schiano is making sure of that. A few tweaks here and there and no worries…
September 25th, 2012 at 1:21 pm
@ Raphael- due to your post here and in the other thread I have a hard time believing you watch these games. Demarcus Ware didn’t sack Freeman on a three step drop because of poor pass protection. He was sacked because he didn’t throw the ball after the three step drop.
September 25th, 2012 at 1:23 pm
the quit will set in if this keeps up…..
you could see the expression on Vjax face at least one time. looked like winslow from last year…and rightfully so with the horrible excuse for a pass thrown in his general direction
September 25th, 2012 at 1:38 pm
@Robert, that combined with the horrible play calling and the media’s obsessive critique of Schiano will definitely take its toll on the team psychologically. We’ll see what happens. Against the Giants Bill Sheridan looked like a complete idiot. Then he comes out and calls a great defensive game. Maybe Sullivan will follow suit but his issues are much more severe. To call running plays on the last drive is beyond comprehension especially since we hadnt been running the ball successfully all game. Even if we had of it was still a ridiculously stupid time to run the ball and that is troubling to me.
September 25th, 2012 at 1:45 pm
The coaching staff will have to get over their over-the-top far of turning over the ball first and foremost before the offense can move forward though. I think it could be the reason for the horribly conservative, vanilla, predictable play calling and also the reason Blount, who had a fumbling issue last year, doesn’t get carries.
Ou hear it all the time from Schiano. “we have to take care of the ball”. “we can’t turn the ball over”. ” ball security is key”. While I don’t think anyone will argue with those points I wonder if Schiano’s philosophy offensively is focused on scoring points or if that is just an afterthought to never turning the ball over. As Bill Belechik said after the game on Sunday “you put the offense on the field to move the ball, you put the offense on the field to score. What else would you be doing?”. I hope Schiano understands that simple basic of the NFL and that he isn’t so focused on never turning the ball over that he handicaps the offense with an overly conservative philosophy.
You got to win games in the NFL, teams won’t just hand them over to us.
September 25th, 2012 at 3:52 pm
If you think about our first offensive series in all three games, they resulted in points. Why? Because I believe Sullivan follows the Bill Walsh school of scripting the first 15 plays. He has them written out and there was some thought about keeping the defense guessing.
The problem is after that and Sully has to call plays on the fly. He seems confused and very predictable. No creativity what so ever. I believe he should script the first 50 plays, which would cover a half. At least the plays would have some variety and would not be predictable. Then just start over after play 50.
September 25th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
Pssst…. Justin, it’s skull, not skulls. Sully’s calling the plays but he is not selecting them.
Anyone who thinks that was Sully’s G-Men based scheme out there last Sunday should be watching European kickball. It’s more yur speed.
September 25th, 2012 at 4:46 pm
I think they don’t trust free to open it up. Joe himself posted about “some in the organization are very concerned about josh freeman and his accuracy.” How do we know Sullivan isn’t going to shiano, “id love to open it up and exploite their back up safeties but josh can’t hit the side of a barn right now.” I think its the latter. Here in Tampa we know a bad QB when we see one, we’ve seen plenty. Josh is a bad QB.
September 25th, 2012 at 5:06 pm
the players and coaches all need to improve, but i think the team is on the right track. offensive playcalling has to be revisited, but we were saying the same thing about the D last week and they adjusted after looking at the film and hearing out their players. i don’t think this staff is as obstinate as people assume, and i think they still have the respect of their players who will continue to work through it with them. we dominated one presumed wildcard team in the Panthers and were a couple miscues away from closing out the world champs on the road and silenced an offense loaded with explosive players in Dallas. that’s not bad for a team still finding its way and dealing with a major injury on the OL which has hurt their offensive gameplan
September 25th, 2012 at 6:58 pm
It’s like watching Andy Reid’s evil twin. Reid WON’T run the ball at all, and SUllivan ONLY run’s the ball. Come on man, throw the DAMN ball!!!!!
September 26th, 2012 at 3:06 am
@Daffy Buck (great name by the way),
That’s a point I have never thought of, but makes absolutely perfect sense. I think it would be hard to script the first 50, simply because you don’t know what the score would be at that time (we could be up 28-0 or down 28-0, etc.). Also, injuries or changes to either team dictates the play calls as well. I love the idea, I just don’t know how feasible it is. I think you are definitely onto something though.
September 26th, 2012 at 3:50 pm
I don’t think trying to get PI down the field on the ROAD is the way to go.I think these ref’s will call everything this weekend.Much like the Sunday and Monday nighter’s. So that huge “get the call’s”home field advantage we’ve seen thru 3 weeks is over.The biggest difference between the real ref’s and these guys is the fact these guy’s let defenders Hold within 5 yard’s of the line and let DB’s contact downfield.Unless u bring it to there attention like the Giant’s game.When Cruz and Nicks weren’t torching us the ref’s were calling questionable PI.