Defense Answered The Bell
September 20th, 2015
Bucs DT Clinton McDonald talks about shutting down Drew Brees in crunch time.
Joe couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
The Saints and future Hall of Fame surgeon Drew Brees trailed the Bucs by but two scores with around 16 minutes to play. How many times have we seen Brees, one of the top quarterbacks to ever throw a football, rally his team from two scores behind?
Then the Bucs went completely turtle on offense. It was the classic play-to-lose scheme. Do nothing on offense and hand the ball back to Brees time and again. Talk about playing with fire in a bomb factory.
Yet the defense held. Bent but didn’t break. The Saints were gashing the Bucs up the middle. Yet when the Bucs had to have a stop or watch the game slink away, they got the job done.
After Brees hit Willie Snead for a 16-yard touchdown pass with 7:20 to go to pull within 23-19, the Bucs slammed the door on the Saints.
Humiliated by a rookie quarterback making his NFL debut last week, the Bucs’ defense rose to the occasion against one of the greatest, Brees. Wow, what a nailbiter!
“I think it was a great job across the board,” Clinton McDonald told Joe in New Orleans. “The rushing coverage was working together. We tried to make Brees hold it and make Brees go to his second- and third-option. That’s when the rush has to be there across the board.
“We fought together as a defense.”
September 20th, 2015 at 5:36 pm
Joe, and we have a poll on whether to IP Ban Dave?
September 20th, 2015 at 5:37 pm
Er…can we…
September 20th, 2015 at 5:37 pm
Was there ever any doubt?
September 20th, 2015 at 5:39 pm
Okay…I feel this week’s win is a good bonus win on my 2-6 prediction for the first half of the season.
In my prediction, I assumed we would beat the Texans.
So with any luck we will start 2-3.
Every game gets us closer to truly competing as the rookies develop, the defense and offense are learned, and the team gels.
September 20th, 2015 at 5:41 pm
I’m extremely pleased about the way things went today. Even with the prevent offense in fourth quarter, I can’t complain. Winston played pretty well…made some nice throws, used his mobility and took some shots down the field. I was entertained, which I haven’t been able to say very much. He’s still got a lot to learn but I feel SO much better than I did last week.
September 20th, 2015 at 5:41 pm
The ball definitely bounced the Bucs way at the end. Everyone with a brain thought the Bucs would blow this game after they went into their protect the lead mode late. Too conservative at the end, The Bucs should have poured on the gas and put this game out of reach earlier. Oh well, like you said it was a nailbiter.
September 20th, 2015 at 5:42 pm
@Lovie Smith, THIS is what we expect from a 10 year Defensive-Minded NFL HC! You shouldve done this last week too, and we’d be sitting at 2-0 right now..
Now that you may finally have your ‘Simeon Rice’ in Jacquies Smith, this D better keep playing at this level for the rest of the season! No more mulligans Lovie! THIS IS THE STANDARD!!!! GO BUCS!!!!!!!
September 20th, 2015 at 5:42 pm
Imagine how much better their collective performance would have been had they been coached to play to the whistle..? Or how about on offense to start the 4th quarter up 23-7 KNOWING the Saints were going to go for strips…and we obliged with 2 lost fumbles..?! Can we please fix these FUNDAMENTAL errors?! Geeeezzzus!
September 20th, 2015 at 5:44 pm
Hallelujah…. The Tampa Bay community really needed this victory. Congratulations to Jameis and the Bucs. Let’s build on this and start paying with some fire!!!
September 20th, 2015 at 5:46 pm
*playing with fire
September 20th, 2015 at 5:49 pm
@BucBonzai…yes you’ve been encouraging pointing out that the seccond half of the season is when we’ll get started.
@LakelandBuc I give it up to you most of all. When the rest of us lost the faith, including me and I”m one of the blog optimists…you never wavered. Props to you for keeping the faith bro!!!
September 20th, 2015 at 5:50 pm
Incredible. Saints actually got 4 timeouts in the second half
September 20th, 2015 at 5:52 pm
Not only am I thrilled/shocked (after last week, most demoralizing loss in roughly the 15 years I’ve been a bucs fan)….but my 138 person survival pool is down to 48 after this game!!!(my tactic is to never take the overwhelming spread favorite in a survivor pool early in the season anyways in case of situations like this happen…..but the fact it was my team makes it that much better!!!)
The defense looked good (kind of) but I saw A LOT of saints receivers wide open, so unfortunately I think this win was more due to the saints o playing poorly than our d playing well
September 20th, 2015 at 5:56 pm
I think I JUST WON MY SURVIVOR POOL!!! 🙂
September 20th, 2015 at 5:59 pm
@ StpeteBucsFan, Thanks, now we gotta take Ryan Mallet and the Texans out to the wood shed. Our front 4 should have a feast against Mallet, they have no running game.
September 20th, 2015 at 6:55 pm
i watched smith, the undersized end, put a RT on his ass with a bull rush. he didnt get the sack, but that was refreshing. go bucs.
September 21st, 2015 at 12:47 am
The Buccaneers just need to –
1) Hold on to the ball.
2) Play to the whistle.
3) OL needs to stay with your blocks, punish their defense
4) Jameis hit the easy throws, no INT.
5) Stop the penalties. Focus. Holding, false start, off sides and so on.
6) Defense – Catch the would be INT.
Think how good this team can be?
September 21st, 2015 at 7:05 am
They should continue with their players only meetings