Harbinger Of The Future?
August 23rd, 2014
Bucs WR Mike Evans hauls in a touchdown catch in the second quarter of the Bucs win over the bungling Bills today. Photo courtesy of Buccaneers.com.
What was impressive about the Bucs win today in the dress rehearsal for the regular season was how dominating the team was with starters in the game through the first half. And this was even after a terrible opening by the Bucs offense.
Joe knows after that start, some Bucs fans were so depressed, they muttered into their pints of beer for Mike Shula’s phone number.
Then, both the offense and the defense shined. The defense not only got stops but those coveted Lovie Smith-endorsed takeaways. And even more important, it got a highly-desired, Chucky-endorsed defensive touchdown.
That, my friends, is “Buc Ball.”
How dominating was the first half? The last time the Bucs had a bigger halftime lead of any sort was a 30-0 whooping over the Saints at halftime in December 2001. Yes, a regular season game.
The last time the Bucs scored 24 points in the first half of a preseason game was Aug. 26, 2007, when Tampa Bay led the Texans 24-17.
Notice in both years, the Bucs were a playoff team?
August 23rd, 2014 at 9:44 pm
God was good to me today – I missed the first two possessions, lol. So all I saw was very exciting, well played Bucs ball. The offense looked exciting. Evans, Martin, VJax, even McCown looked great. I mean really – 24 points in the first half!!! Yeah, the Oline continued to be a problem, but for now we have some very encouraging signs.
August 23rd, 2014 at 9:59 pm
See even Joe thinks we are going to the playoffs!!!!
August 23rd, 2014 at 10:20 pm
This is a top 5 defense this year and I saw the top secret offense Tedford is going to expose nfl linebackers in coverage vs our running backs. I just can’t wait until Sims returns for that stretch run.
August 24th, 2014 at 1:05 am
KOOL.AID.
August 24th, 2014 at 3:12 am
I tgink we have to remember not to get too high off this win as well as too low off of losses. Yeah it feels good to win but we have to keep in mind the team we played fellas. Not a playoff team last year right?
August 24th, 2014 at 6:57 am
EJ Manual is just bad, but some of that was due to the pressure the D-line got on him. The Bills also had soooo many penalties they stopped themselves a few times. EJ did carve up the twos in the third quarter, so depth is a little concerning. I’m feeling a little better now about this team now than I did after the other two pre-season games.
August 24th, 2014 at 10:04 am
As an FSU fan I followed Manual & he never did impress me except for his size. Don’t know what the Bills saw in him.
August 24th, 2014 at 11:38 am
What I liked about this game was the glimmer of hope that the improvement of the Offense was due to Tedford ADJUSTING (horrors) to what the Bill defense was doing. I know that thought almost sacrilege , or has been, but there ya go.
As far as how bad the 2nds were against the Bill’s firsts, one has to remember that they’ll prolly play as 1st get injured &/or need to be spelled, and not as an entire unit. I’m thinking the time they spent against the Bills provided a good humbling, and a wake up call…might help get a few get it in gear.
August 24th, 2014 at 12:58 pm
“Mike Shula’s phone number.”
Personally I was looking for jimmy Johnson’s number. I know he down here somewhere on a fishing boat or preparing for his next stint on survivor.
August 24th, 2014 at 3:14 pm
Not ready to buy play off tickets yet but we do look much improved from prior weeks. Carolina is looking pretty inept offensively so we should be able to hold this to a low scoring game. We have more weapons offensively and our defense is just as stout as Carolinas so I look for a low scoring close game but I give us the edge. We’ll just take this one game at a time and see where we are come December.