“You Don’t Need Five Good Linemen”
August 11th, 2014
Former Bucs TE and current BSPN football analyst Anthony Becht offered an interesting thought on repairing the Bucs’ porous offensive line.
Bucs fans have one thing on their minds (no, not Bucs cheerleader Tricia Cusmano) and that won’t going to change until Tampa Bay shoes improvement. The subject? You guessed it: The offensive line.
Former Bucs tight end Anthony Becht appeared on WDAE-AM 620 this morning and, like everyone else, he had to search for antacids after watching the first team offensive line Friday night.
Becht squarely put the issue of the sieve squarely on the shoulders of the guards. Much like Bucs coach Lovie Smith, Becht doesn’t believe Bucs fans need to go all doomsday and raid hardware stores of batteries and go underground.
“You don’t need five good linemen, guys,” Becht said. “You have three of them now that I think will hold the fort down. You just have to find two more guys who can go out there, have good feet, stay in front of their guys and don’t get beat on a consistent basis.
“I think there were too many issues early in the game in multiple series. [The line] didn’t show me any kind of improvement or that it would get better.”
Becht later dropped a name he believes Bucs fans should monitor, and that is rookie free agent Josh Allen, a center. Becht watched the Bucs night practice and was impressed enough with Allen that Becht thought he may have the skills to move to guard.
“I really liked his feet,” Becht said. “That would be an interesting change of pace for throwing a young guy in there.”
The juggling has already begun with second-year man Jace Daniels getting a turn to prove himself as a guard on the first team. Joe suspects the juggling hasn’t quite ended, however.
August 11th, 2014 at 1:22 pm
Great. Now Joe’s new favorite practice squad player is Josh Allen.
Will he get his own article perhaps?
August 11th, 2014 at 1:24 pm
Rachel who? :^)
August 11th, 2014 at 1:27 pm
In my humble opinion, Becht hit the nail on the head. AC, Dotson, and EDS can more than hold the fort down when they’re not lining up with turn stalls on one side of them and poor EDS on BOTH sides of him. That has the same effect on defensive players that it does offensive players…you start worrying about the guy next to you and not squarely on your job. When Lovie FINALLY abandons his long held Chicago belief system of picking up and playing chicken sh!t O-linemen, the Bucs will be abetter team for it. UNFORTUNATELY after 10 years of doing the SAME thing on the o line in chitown, one year in his basement does not make a bad habit go away.
August 11th, 2014 at 1:34 pm
The Problem is , we don’t have 3 good offensive linemen. I saw Collins play terrible, Dotson with two bad penalties, and blah play from EDS. Toss in two scrubs at guards and you are left with a shit sandwich.
August 11th, 2014 at 1:36 pm
Now maybe we will get to hear about all the great passes that were made under pressure that McCown would never had gotten off Or would have been 10 yard sacks. Or that McCown would have been running for his life
August 11th, 2014 at 1:37 pm
@BUC4LIFE79
I’ve been saying that since we hired Lovie, we’re just going to become Chicago South, we’re going to have a great defense, but we’re never going to get anywhere because of our offense, and my opinion was only validated when Lovie went out and spent $10 mil on a career backup QB, who showed us all on Friday, why he was a career backup, the man has 13 years in the league and still makes rookie bonehead throws…
August 11th, 2014 at 1:41 pm
We only need Shaun King……to “eat” up a lot of space…..and 4 average Olinemen….
“Shaun King, one of two Buc Quarterbacks that lost a NFC Championship Game when his defense gave up 11 or fewer points.”
August 11th, 2014 at 1:59 pm
@flmike
If Peyton Manning had nothing but turf to eat on every down, I doubt he’d have looked much better. McCown was hearing footsteps on all four series. How it all works out to being his fault I’d love to hear your explanation on?
August 11th, 2014 at 2:18 pm
Joe…finally a reference to a cheerleader not named Ms. Watson. We all know that Ms Watson belongs in the TB cheerleader HOF, but I’m very happy to see that you’re exploring the new talent as well. Variety is the spice of life.
August 11th, 2014 at 2:24 pm
@louis friend
That is one crazy statement you just made! and I love a crazy statement. But to say “If old man mcCown could not do it”, then one of the Greatest QBs to every play the game, that the same result would occur. Thats just plan nuts
August 11th, 2014 at 2:48 pm
An O-Line is like a chain, only as strong as it’s weakest link. Other teams will know that weak link and exploit it. So yes, you DO need 5 good players there
August 11th, 2014 at 3:03 pm
ahhhhh….Mr. Patrick, he was saying that you don’t need to FIND 5 good linemen. We only need to find 2.
August 11th, 2014 at 3:22 pm
Yep. Just making my point and stating a fact
August 11th, 2014 at 3:38 pm
While the play at guard is an obvious whipping post that we appear set to tie ourselves to this season – I’m not real convinced that some of the problem wasn’t due to this being Tedfords first game calling plays in the NFL, being up in the box calling plays, and how much rust he accumulated from NOT calling ANY plays, on ANY field for over a year?
I understand we didn’t gameplan for Jax, understand we didn’t want to show to much of the offense, but based on the fact that McCown should’ve been able to look somewhat like he did last season – big receivers, phenom at TE and a couple of natural pass catching RB’s…he should’ve looked like Johnny Football’s handling of the offense in Cleveland i.e., “run around and get rid of the ball…FAST..?
…only, he DIDN’T get rid of the ball, fast?
I saw way too much of a mobile QB standing stepping up into te pocket, looking downfield for a specific receiver…? He did eventually do some deep looping sprint out’s that worked (often called back due to O-Line penalty)…but it didn’t seem to work?
We’ve known the line was going to be a problem, specifically at guard – just wondering how much a factor it is having Tedford up in the box, calling plays down? How much rust the OC is dealing with…and how much “tempo” in practice is a problem? The year we won a Super Bowl – I can remember ONE thing Chucky preached from the start of training camp: “TEMPO” number of plays per game was huge – we seemed sloppy, and never reached any level of timing that could be called “tempo”? In fact, we seemed to get bogged down a lot against Jax…and I don’t put that all on the o-line…
August 11th, 2014 at 3:47 pm
EDS is the only decent player we have on the line. Let’s be honest Lovie went out and got back up players to replace All pro offensive lineman and hoped Nicks would be okay. It was a money move and he will have to explain it all season. I give Lovie 8 games until the fans start to boo him. I give the offense until halftime of game 2 until the fans turn on them. We have weapons on offense skill positions but a college offensive line, Josh may need to be shot gun the whole season.
August 11th, 2014 at 4:02 pm
Louis’s statement is not nuts, no QB is effective with out protection. In fact, McCown is pretty moble. Manning would have baking a beating too. Now both with a great line and Manning outplays him for sure. A great oline can make OK QBs look fantastic, but great QBs do not make bad olines look great.
August 11th, 2014 at 4:03 pm
Two names – BOONE INCOGNITO. We have money for both, why are we not doing this? We have so many pieces in place, why not make a serious run this year?
August 11th, 2014 at 4:03 pm
The O-line play on Fri was just terrible there is no other way to say it. I find it very difficult to judge McCown’s performance given the fact that every time he dropped back to pass the ball it seemed that somebody in a different color jersey was meeting him at the end of his drop.
August 11th, 2014 at 4:05 pm
I have read more than a few articles on the “cons” of picking up Boone, but Incognito is available and from what I have read the guy would play with some serious heart, he is out to prove himself. Even Goodell spoke well of him.
August 11th, 2014 at 4:10 pm
Tricia…. wow.
also yeah if we could even get one guard down and EDS help out on the other guard spot we’d be OK. We just can’t have EDS block everyone in the middle and not expect rather large problems to happen like we had Friday.
August 11th, 2014 at 4:10 pm
Posted earlier on the McCown thread.
August 11th, 2014 at 2:31 pm
Finally got to see the game yesterday. A few points:
First, I agree that Josh McCown had very little protection from the OL, but there have been articles quoting Pro Football Focus, as well as several comments claiming that McCown was one of the best QB’s in the league “against pressure”. Where was that McCown? Two fumbles and a “pick 6″ in only four series!
Secondly, on the “pick 6″ throw, I counted at least four seconds before the throw, so at least on that one he had at least some time.
Thirdly, I thought that Collins at LT had the worst performance of any offensive lineman, and on the sack/fumble, he was easily the first player to the ball, but could not secure it??
tickrdr
August 11th, 2014 at 4:10 pm
From bleacher report –
A player of Boone’s stature doesn’t reach the open market very often. The 49ers would likely be reluctant to trade away one of their best offensive players. His age and tenacity would make him an ideal fit for several teams.
Wish we would do this, we have the money, a third or fourth round pick for this beast road grader???? Come on Jason – Lovie, what are you waiting for? See if McCown can take a beating and still stand under center? I see Kafka starting by week 5 because Glennon and Mccown are out for the season due to being hit often and hit hard.
August 11th, 2014 at 4:44 pm
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August 11th, 2014 at 5:05 pm
To Discount08. Why are you typing in caps like someone who has never been on the internet before?
August 11th, 2014 at 5:27 pm
I think EDS is just as responsible. You can’t do ANYTHING on offense if the pressure is right up the middle and it was immediate.
Usually I prefer team cohesiveness over a higher caliber player. Usually I’d say nothing can substitute training camp. After Friday though, I think we need to go out and get a guard or two that can physically handle a man lined up opposite him. The teamwork will come later. Right now we need an NFL caliber guard and we don’t have one.
August 11th, 2014 at 8:20 pm
How some of y’all can completely judge a lineman based on 20 snaps in a non-game plan game is beyond me.
Lt, c and rt are fine.
August 11th, 2014 at 9:32 pm
Espo: Is EDS supposed to block both D tackles by himself? He can’t help out both guards at the same time on every play. Watch the game again, the guard play was horrendous. 75 (Cousins) and 79 (Meredith) kept jumping out at me and 73 (Collins) could have played better, The pick 6 featured #50 of the Jags bearing straight down on McCown as he was hit immediately as he overthrew his receiver. A second more and he probably would have hit that shot. Dot seemed competent overall but not dominant. The second team O Line performed slightly better but mainly because they were playing against the second team jags D-line. Still very little movement in the run game as a whole. The only runs that seemed to break were the ones that got bounced to the outside even though they were between the tackles runs. That’s why Martin didn’t look as good as Rainey or Sims who are faster (and were playing against largely worse competition). Zero room between the tackles for most of the night.