“That Has To Rankle Somebody”
May 21st, 2015
Was Charles Sims forced to play too early from an injury or was he simply over-hyped?
It is the chicken-or-the-egg theory with Bucs’ running attack, or lack thereof last year.
As a team, Tampa Bay only ran for 1,375 yards. In. A. Season.
Doug Martin was hurt and ran with his head down, for the most part, and tried to bowl over linebackers making little effort to be evasive. Charles Sims — let’s be brutally honest here — was either over-hyped or forced to play too early coming back from a bad wheel, or both. Bobby Rainey found himself in Lovie Smith’s doghouse and never found the exit.
This meant garbage production from your rushing game, BAY-bee. But hold up, said the “Custodian of Canton,” eye-RAH! Kaufman of the The Tampa Tribune. In a TBO.com Bucs podcast with Olivia Stacey, Kaufman excoriated the embarrassing Bucs offensive line as the source of the ills.
“Doug Martin is an enigma right now, Olivia,” Kaufman said. “He was spectacular as a rookie, I believe he finished third in the league, that is third out of 32 in the league in top running backs. So that was extremely impressive for a late-first round pick out of Boise State. Then the bottom dropped out — got hurt early in 2013 with that shoulder injury and hasn’t been the same.
“Some people feel he is not making enough people miss at the line of scrimmage. But let’s be honest: It is hard to judge Bucs running backs given the inept play of the offensive line last season. It seemed to me Martin, Sims, Rainey were hit very often at the line of scrimmage if not before. Before they got a head of steam. They didn’t have a 500-yard rusher. That has to rankle somebody like Lovie Smith who wants a strong running game.”
It is appalling the Bucs could not have a running back get 500 yards in a season. In a freaking season! What, did the Great Lumpkin put a pall over the Bucs’ rushing attack last year?
That is unreal, Joe is trying to remember such dismal numbers for an NFL team and cannot. Just inexcusable on every level.
So maybe Kaufman is on to something? It was the offensive line, not running backs, rebuilt in the offseason. It’s hard to figure out why three talented running backs like Martin, Rainey and Sims, injuries aside, couldn’t have 500-yard rusher emerge — 500 freaking yards — in 16 games.
Some running backs get 500 yards in two games. Unreal!
May 21st, 2015 at 2:07 pm
I’ve always said my grandmother could be a successful running back with a dominate offensive line.
May 21st, 2015 at 2:09 pm
lol who would ever believe that…..they believe the offensive line was the reason glennon sucked but that’s it. in tampa its the running backs fault the offensive line doesn’t block well. was martin’s shoulder still an issue that he couldn’t power through runs like his rookie year? who knows but all I know is no one on this team has excuses, not the D line, the O line, Lovie or anyone not even the rookie qb is an excuse given the job glennon did as a rookie. cant do anything this year then who is to blame, you got your line your offensive coordinator what possible excuse could there be lovie!!!
May 21st, 2015 at 2:22 pm
OVERHYPED.
However…that doesn’t mean he cannot be developed into something good.
May 21st, 2015 at 2:24 pm
Sims looks good when he hits that second level. Lets hope the line can make holes this year
May 21st, 2015 at 2:24 pm
Every single personnel move this team has made has been a colossal blunder… the Charles simms is the next Forte laugher, the giving away of Donald Penn and Zuttah and even Davin Joseph….that could have been a serviceable OL last year…that is piss-poor talent evaluation….they have had only 1 positive come through in all of the crap they have thrown against the wall and that is Mike Evans…….have the joes done a batting average on what the bucs have been successful at the past year? I think jameis is the real deal, now lets show licht and lovie the door after this 2-14 waste with Ihops OL and the D3er trying to protect america’s QB, that is a fireable offense in itself
May 21st, 2015 at 2:37 pm
Has to rankle Lovie Smith Kaufman says. Doubt that. Nothing seems to rankle LS, not O line, not the D. We just need time to work things out.
May 21st, 2015 at 2:43 pm
We just have to wait in the pumpkin patch for the great lump kin to show up and give us presents so…. Oh… Um… Right.
May 21st, 2015 at 2:56 pm
Charlie Murphy!!!!
May 21st, 2015 at 2:57 pm
starting out the season on injured reserve I would say is basically putting you behind the learning curve and no one knows what the guy will be, we don’t know anything about his toughness or intelligence as a football player. I do like the way he moves and im all in favor of bigger back over the doug martins of the nfl. again my hope is this guy works out so we’re not wasting higher draft picks on another back any time soon
May 21st, 2015 at 2:58 pm
Kind of hard to run the ball when the defenders are in the backfield with the running backs!
May 21st, 2015 at 3:06 pm
Not too down on Sims, but yeah Lovie wanted to give “his guy” all the time in the world, even though he wasn’t the best RB on the team. I hope Martin gets more chances in his contract year as well as Rainey, but to be honest, without good offensive line play it doesn’t matter who is back there taking handoffs.
May 21st, 2015 at 3:17 pm
Simple Simms and Rainey didn’t play enough and Martin hurt. Plus o-line sucked. No mysteries.
May 21st, 2015 at 3:25 pm
If Jameis is hitting his receivers those eight and nine in the box looks we saw last year will disappear, our slightly upgraded line should be able to open some wholes and our mediocre backs might have have a chance to get into the secondary for bigger gains. i hate it when fans blame it all on the line. Koetter is the key. We need someone to coordinate all the above.We also need someone who can call plays that exploit the weakness in a defense. We did not have that last year.
May 21st, 2015 at 3:47 pm
I think this is pretty obvious, the o-line was one of the worst, if not the worst, in the league last year. We all know it. Just plain terrible.
AP couldn’t have done sh*t behind that line.
DeMarco Murray couldn’t have done sh*t behind that line.
Fix the line. Open some holes. Protect your QB. Play with some nasty for christ’s sake!
May 21st, 2015 at 4:20 pm
Martinii-
What in the world makes you think this line is upgraded from last year?!?! I mean, we can hope that Donovan Smith is better than Anthony Collins, but we don’t know that yet. We can hope that Ali Marpet can go from blocking 200lb high schoolers to Ndamakong Suh in the course of 6 months without skipping a beat, but without seeing it on the field we have no idea.
As of right now this line is not better. It’s not upgraded. It’s just a new name or two. Show me on Sundays, but until then this is still the worst line in the league.
May 21st, 2015 at 4:23 pm
“Every single personnel move this team has made has been a colossal blunder…” / “Fire lovie/light”
Jesus man lol. People with these attitudes would run franchises into the ground so fast it’s not even funny.
Letting Zutah go was bad. About the 1 move I hated the most. But Penn/Joseph did play terribly the year before. Let’s not act like those were horrible moves to move on. If the draft picks even semi-pan out then we just dropped 10 years in age at 2 premium positions. At least they can admit their mistakes and let go of the guys that did not work out (Collins/Johnson)
Jack Smith – best DE production the team has had since Bennet. Found him off waivers.
Bradley McDougald – solid young S plucked out of nowhere. No credit for that? He’s an upgrade over Barron / Goldson.
Danny Lansanah – found out of nowhere and was a solid contributor. No credit for that?
Give the draft classes 3 years to evaluate. Not even going to really comment on that. 2nd/3rd round picks got injured. Only an idiot would write their NFL careers off. Gerald McCoy didn’t do sh*t as a rookie and had injury problems.
The defense in the last 10 weeks of the year played better than any stretch we had with the last few regimes.
Calm down people and believe!
May 21st, 2015 at 4:23 pm
Again, we have to stress the task in front of Ali Marpet….I really think this kid is going to need a red shirt year.
He’s going from driving a city bus to driving an F-1 racer and that transition is happening virtually overnight…he may be a very good player down the line but the learning curve for him is going to be enormous and it’s going to take some time.
May 21st, 2015 at 5:37 pm
Every single personnel move this team has made has been a colossal blunder
That is a perfect example of the literary device hyperbole. It’s sports and the sports world is full of hyperbole. But most times it’s the fans exaggerating how good their team not exaggerating how bad they are.
WTF is with Buc fans anyway. EVERY single personnel move? Mike Evans? What about discovering Lansanah? English? Jack Smith? Those were colossal blunders?
Jeebus we were 2-14 last year that sucks and I get it. But they lost how many by less than a TD. They didn’t make that proverbial “play” when needed. Hang on to the game saving int. Don’t fumble a 3rd down completion for a first down after you catch it. Count to eleven for heavens sake.
It’s everybody’s choice. Look at the promise of this club or look at the failure that was the 2014 squad. EVERY team is different every year.
May 21st, 2015 at 5:41 pm
Oops…Lord C you beat me to it. Preach it bro’.
May 21st, 2015 at 6:25 pm
Ira is right. Hmmm, I do wonder what incompetent coach and lapdog suit is responsible for that shameful oline?
May 21st, 2015 at 7:04 pm
Martinii – you sir get the prize for hitting the nail on the head!
May 21st, 2015 at 7:51 pm
I’m pissed off again, thanks for reminding me how Lovie pulled Rainey out of game when he was doing so good, ahhh all those bad coaching in game moves.
May 21st, 2015 at 8:29 pm
I am not sure whether the O-line is going to be improved over last season: I am going to err on the side of optimism and assume it can not get any worse than what is was. Couple that with the fact that the Bucs had absolutely horrible play out of McNown for all his starts save the Deadskin game (a game that the skins lost more than the Bucs won, recall that the Skins were probably as bad as Tampa last season) and the fact that Tampa was working with an OC who was very much over his head and it is not too surprising the Bucs went 2-14 and probably should have won 3 to 5 more games if a few huge coaching blunders were corrected…… Koetter is now the OC and Winston is now the qb; both of these upgrades alone should get the Bucs a few more wins this season, perhaps 6 wins and maybe a run at 0.500 if the Bucs can actually steal a game or 2… Still I can see why many fans could feel like CreamsicleBananaHammock if you consider that L&L are still in charge, Warhop is still coaching the OL and O’Dea is still coaching special teams given that these 4 men single handedly contributed to so many of the close losses as StPeteBucFan points out in his last post and imagine where the Bucs would be now if they actually won a few of these games and went 5-11 or 6-10 and picked behind teams like the Jets, Deadskins and Falcons in the draft. You’d have the same mistake laden, under talented roster/staff without the acquisition of Winston and Arroyo may have actually kept his job; where would the conversation be today if the Bucs drafted 7th or 8th in 2015? So perhaps the tanking to 2-14 was a good thing in retrospect and for now I prefer to try to be a bit optimistic about the upcoming season and not all doom and gloom like some here though that is a distinct possibility given L&L track record… He!! I’d take 6-10 and 3-3 in division…
May 21st, 2015 at 8:37 pm
Re Lovie’s disdain for Bobby Rainey. I like Bobby Rainey and so I understand the frustration of some posters. But it’s not hard to figure out.
Rainey had three turnovers on fumbles and I don’t know how many he had that didn’t result in turnovers. But if you take just the fumbles lost that represents slightly over 3% of his carries according to the Rotoworld stats.
Conservative coaches like Lovie do not play QB’s who toss int’s or start RB’s that fumble the football. For a defensive minded coach any player on offense that dares turn the ball over is ride the pine material. It’s just that simple. Might not be a good way for a coach to decide who plays but it is what it is with conservative coaches.
I’m curious as to how patient Lovie/Koetter will be with Fameis when he tosses ints. I suspect it’ll depend on how many successful passes leading to scores that Fameis also tosses. I think we all agree he’s probably going to toss plenty of both..TD’s and ints…and we all hope he ends up like Favre with the positive outweighing the negative.
May 21st, 2015 at 9:12 pm
Again every personnel move flopped except Mike Evans… if any moves was decent the bucs wouldnt be 2-14… penn was rated a top 10 OL in 2014… zuttah solid…. hope people are happy with 2-14, 5-11, 6-10 teams thats what some sound like
May 21st, 2015 at 9:53 pm
Dallas’ RB/OL situation tells you all you need to know about the chicken or egg theory. OL is by far the foundation of a strong run game.
What separates a good back from a bad one is the ability to make people miss & gain yards after contact at the 2nd level. The Bucs’ RBs couldn’t get to the 2nd level because of the poor OL & run schemes/playcalls. RB is just not a high-value important position even though the media obsesses over RB stats & idolizes the ones that produce.
May 21st, 2015 at 11:54 pm
Other than Zuttah, what o linemen deserved to play under Lovie from the previous regime? Yeah lets not forget how heartless the line was under Schiano in ’13. Thats not Lovies fault. He had to try to fix it and you dont just fix an o line after one year. Its incompetent to think otherwise.
Now we can blame Lovie for bringing in Mccown and handing him the starting job, which, along with Tedford leaving made the entire offense look bad. But Lovie didnt let his ego interfere and cut his losses. That’s definitely a step in the right direction.
I dont beleive Lovie is incompetent. He has been in this league a long time. He turned the Bears from bottom feeders to being relevant. He even coached in a superbowl. Oh my bad, i forgot the defensive coordinator got them there while Lovie just stiod there with a clipboard, right?
May 22nd, 2015 at 12:05 am
Wow Joe, please excuse the sarcasm but you are one hell of a rocket scientist.
All success starts at the line of scrimmage.
The road to victory depends heavily on line play . Proof is in the old Denver Broncos who continualy replaced running backs one right after another and produced 1000 yd rushers. Many of those backs were no names.
All the articles criticizing rbs and qbs makes me laugh. Most writers don’t understand football.
May 22nd, 2015 at 12:09 am
In addition, it’s hard to judge line play with terrible game plans and no oc
May 22nd, 2015 at 4:57 am
It’s amazing to me that Bucs fans are expecting fireworks from a rookie RB coming off the PUP list with a terrible offensive line and no offensive coordinator.
What the heck did you expect to see? Barry Sanders?