What To Do Now?
October 16th, 2014
It’s not even Halloween and small children are too frightened to watch the Bucs. That is how bad it has been.
Tampa Bay is not just 1-5, they are miserable beyond words. Even with guys like Gerald McCoy and Lavonte David, the defense is on pace to be the absolute worst in the 95-year existence of the NFL.
How exactly can this happen? What can the Bucs do to turn this season around?
Woody Cummings may have the answers. In this TBO.com video, the Tampa Tribune Bucs beat writer tells TBO’s Olivia Stacey what went wrong for the Bucs and when to expect things to go right.
October 16th, 2014 at 3:06 pm
In Lovie we trust!
October 16th, 2014 at 3:26 pm
“What to do now?” Good question. Wait for spring training, I suppose.
October 16th, 2014 at 3:32 pm
I’m kind of tired of ragging on Lovie, but that would leave me with not much to remark about besides the play of the Bucs. Now tha’ts inspiring failure on a grand scale.
October 16th, 2014 at 3:33 pm
Hope they learn the system eventually, play the gaps correctly and get instinctive, then focus on nuances. Likely next year for most of it.
October 16th, 2014 at 3:46 pm
It might feel good to call for Lovie’s head….but it won’t happen…he is here to stay at least through next year and probably beyond.
We will have to rely on our offense to win games…..and the old Buc ball doesn’t apply when your defense is giving up so many points.
I actually like our offensive weapons and believe if our line play can be improved they can be a force.
What happened to some of the dinks & dunks from last year with Glennon….if we can’t run, then short passes should help.
As for the defense, its so bad I have no clue….but you can best believe that we will face some more 3 step drops and we better start jamming recievers on the line or we will continue to get torched.
October 16th, 2014 at 3:57 pm
They can start by teaching how to tackle, how to jam and reroute WR, how to play your zone, how to win 1v1’s, how to pass and run block, how to run, etc….. Wait… is this pop-warner football or professional? $hit! Little 5 yr old kids playing soccer swarm better to the ball than this defense. Firing. Frazier and Lovie would be too easy. But hey im not against it either. Jeff Chudzinski got fired in Cleveland after one season. And they weren’t as horrible as our YUCS.
October 16th, 2014 at 4:26 pm
To me, there is no doubt this is mostly a coaching issue. I don’t believe there is such a lack of talent on the Bucs that we cannot compete with other teams. First, Lovie brought in MANY of these players (almost the entire Oline, for example) – these player changes are clearly his responsibility if they are not performing well (you hear me M Johnson?). And unfortunately, they are likely to be doing the drafting next year (another setback??)
Second, if you say its a learning curve for his system, that is such bulls℗it. Lets go with everyone’s favorite comparison – Dungy’s 1st year, 1996. The Bucs started that year EXACTLY as this year, with a 1-5 record. There were also two “blow-outs” during the first 6 games, both at home: Packers 3-34 and Lions 0-27. But the scores at the half were only 3-24 and 0-17, respectively. NOT 35-0 and 38-0 at the half! That is beyond ridiculous!
Third, I do not think that Sapp and Brooks, as only 2nd year players, were as that much better than McCoy and David are right now. Brooks had 92 tackles and 0 sacks in ’96, while David had 106 tackles and 7 sacks in ’13; Sapp had 41 tackles and 9 sacks in ’96, while McCoy had 9.5 sacks and 35 tackles in ’13.
So I just don’t buy the concept of it being talent. Hell, Schiano got a lot more out of these guys then Lovie is getting. And I now realize why – Schiano did adjust his schemes to fit his talent and I don’t think Lovie does. The biggest problem with this team boils down to coaching and maybe poor talent evaluation. Lovie, this is on you – you are what your record says you are and your record is 1-5
October 16th, 2014 at 4:35 pm
Agree with Harry. Coaching is the main issue. Look at what happened in KC last year. Good coaching can turn things around rapidly. Lovie had a good record but he must be out of touch with whatever is new in the game.
October 16th, 2014 at 5:01 pm
Bringing up KC is a bad example. KC has talent!! To say that we have equal talent is just idiotic. Oh Schiano got them to play better??? We started off 0-8 and finished 4-12!!! I mean do you people even think before you post….
October 16th, 2014 at 5:02 pm
What made Lovie’s Tampa 2 more successful than other Tampa 2’s was having Brian Urlacher as his MLB. He was able to stop the run, call the defenses, and still had the speed to cover the slot too. Why he bought into Hardy’s foolish idea that Foster could play like that if he just dropped some weight, is beyond me. Foster runs a 4.75 40 and is not fast enough to cover the slot and after dropping his weight he just gets run over in the running game. Also, in Sapp’s days we didn’t just use the front four to stop teams, we also used blitzes when needed. Licht is the major problem with the defense. He goofed on Johnson’s ability. He should have traded off Golston. Tandy can play that position with more speed than Golston and is a better tackler too, yet Lovie isn’t playing him much. Licht misjudged how well the All Pro from the Titans could play in the tampa 2. And most of all Licht blew it in trading off Reavis who could lock down half the field. Lovie has to find another Urlacher and find him quick. For now, I suggest he needs to start Lansanah in the middle and move Foster to SLB. He needs to replace Licht at the end of this season.
October 16th, 2014 at 5:06 pm
what to do now?
get rid of gil byrd CB coach.
if he won’t resign, fire his butt.
stop using the tampa 2.
October 16th, 2014 at 5:12 pm
Start with making sure the defense learns the scheme and understand their gaps and assignments. It might take the entire season for this to happen, but the team will be greatly improved if everyone understands their responsibilities on the football field. That falls on both player and coach, so hopefully this is corrected sooner rather than later.
As for the offense, just play Mike Glennon all season regardless of how good or bad he performs, so this way the team can have an idea if the QB of the future is on the team at present or if he needs to be found in the draft.
October 16th, 2014 at 6:01 pm
Harry Says:
October 16th, 2014 at 4:26 pm
To me, there is no doubt this is mostly a coaching issue. I don’t believe there is such a lack of talent on the Bucs that we cannot compete with other teams. First, Lovie brought in MANY of these players (almost the entire Oline, for example) – these player changes are clearly his responsibility if they are not performing well (you hear me M Johnson?). And unfortunately, they are likely to be doing the drafting next year (another setback??)
Second, if you say its a learning curve for his system, that is such bulls℗it. Lets go with everyone’s favorite comparison – Dungy’s 1st year, 1996. The Bucs started that year EXACTLY as this year, with a 1-5 record. There were also two “blow-outs” during the first 6 games, both at home: Packers 3-34 and Lions 0-27. But the scores at the half were only 3-24 and 0-17, respectively. NOT 35-0 and 38-0 at the half! That is beyond ridiculous!
Third, I do not think that Sapp and Brooks, as only 2nd year players, were as that much better than McCoy and David are right now. Brooks had 92 tackles and 0 sacks in ’96, while David had 106 tackles and 7 sacks in ’13; Sapp had 41 tackles and 9 sacks in ’96, while McCoy had 9.5 sacks and 35 tackles in ’13.
So I just don’t buy the concept of it being talent. Hell, Schiano got a lot more out of these guys then Lovie is getting. And I now realize why – Schiano did adjust his schemes to fit his talent and I don’t think Lovie does. The biggest problem with this team boils down to coaching and maybe poor talent evaluation. Lovie, this is on you – you are what your record says you are and your record is 1-5
———————————————————————————-
Excellent Post! Coaching (or lack thereof) and poor talent evaluation.
tickrdr
October 16th, 2014 at 6:51 pm
Draft.draft Draft.draft. …cant wait to draft a de……d line…..db…….s……my liver cant handle this season. …….I guess I’ll watch golf. ..
October 16th, 2014 at 7:01 pm
Who gives a rip what Becht or anyone else thinks? Doesn’t matter about what they should do, what’s always mattered is what they’re going to do. Which is why most of us are pissed off. We figure they’ll just chalk it all up to ‘needing to play within the system better’ and do nothing else at all.
They’ll probably win another game or two this season. Even a blind squirrel can find an acorn once in a while.
October 16th, 2014 at 8:38 pm
@tickrdr,
Thank you!
October 16th, 2014 at 9:50 pm
Yeah Schiano did such a great job adjusting the scheme to the talent with that STELLAR 0-8 start!! I hope that you guys are trolling! You seriously can’t be that stupid….
October 16th, 2014 at 10:10 pm
I live in orlando which is an area of all different football fans..when I goto a bar down here people use to laugh at me for liking the bucs.. now these people are sad for me….there just shocked how bad we are..and thats what we are a sad bad team!
October 16th, 2014 at 10:56 pm
@OneLove Says:
“…Yeah Schiano did such a great job adjusting the scheme to the talent with that STELLAR 0-8 start!! …You seriously can’t be that stupid….”
Lets at least compare in more detail, if you insist on name calling. In comparison to Lovie’s first year, Schiano’s worst blowout was week 15 vs the Saints ((0-41) – and that was not a half time score, unlike Lovie. Thru 6 games, Schiano (who I was not a fan of, btw) had a record of 2-4, not significantly different from Lovie. However, Schiano lost by a combined 22 points in those first 4 losses. Whereas Lovie has lost by a combined 87 points in his 5 losses.
Ok, now on to Schiano’s infamous 0-8 start. In Schiano’s first 6 games (so we can compare apples to apples), Schiano lost by a combined 41 points in his first 6 losses (less than half of what Lovie has lost by) and he lost by 62 points, combined, in his 0-8 start – still far less than your beloved Lovie in ONLY 5 losses by a combined 87 points.
So, OneLove, the moral of the story is, don’t be calling people stupid if it is really you that has not done your homework and YOU that is the stupid one.
October 17th, 2014 at 12:02 am
Harry ……OneLove is our new JBF Lovie shill. What he forgets about and if he was here last season on JBF was how many fans in here bitched and moaned about all the talent Schiano had on his team and he still couldn’t win.
They said stuff like. Damn there’s no excuse with all this talent we have and we keep losing. Yet Lovie got rid of all that “supposed” talent.
OneLove….it might be best to change your name soon. Seeing how your the idiot calling people idiots. People continually make you look like a fool. It’s too easy even. Just quit while your behind already…
October 17th, 2014 at 6:34 am
Onelove – I forgot that KC had talent. My bad.
October 17th, 2014 at 7:29 am
@Buc1987,
Every village has to have their idiot, right? lol
October 17th, 2014 at 1:47 pm
How bout we beat the dog-sh*t outta the Vikings?