“Definitely Not Anything That You Practice”
September 25th, 2015
When you preach takeaways and scoring on defense, you sometimes find that your defense will improvise to get the job done — even if coaches might frown upon the attempt.
That happened in Sunday’s game against the Saints, when safety Chris Conte picked off Drew Brees. Wide receiver Brandin Cooks clung to his leg, and Conte flipped the ball to Alterraun Verner, who scampered 25 or so yards up field.
Conte talked about the play on the Buccaneers Radio Network. It wasn’t rehearsed, and it definitely wasn’t practiced.
“Alterraun comes running over, ‘Gimme the ball. Gimme the ball,” Conte said.
Conte said he immediately assessed “limited risk” so he made the short handoff/flip.
“We always say we want to score on defense,” Conte said. “Definitely not anything that you practice or that coaches are recommending that you do.”
Yes, gambling with the football can definitely bite a team in the ass. Conte’s play (video here) was pretty safe. Joe likes the attack-dog spirit the Bucs defense displayed Sunday, Conte especially.
He explained his pouncing on the early fumble from Brees — while most of his teammates thought it was an incomplete pass — was right out of the Lovie Smith playbook: Get the ball and worry about the referees call later.
September 25th, 2015 at 12:10 pm
it was a good play by conte…we really need the entire defence to step up this week and beat a team that’s staring down the barrel of 0-3…after the saints game the team seemed more confident in their ability to win on the road…I see uncle moe being carried into this game and us coming out with a win…to be completely honest, next weeks game vs the panthers will be a better measuring stick for this team…by week 5 I hope we are 4-0, but I will take 3-1,2-0 in the division or 2-2,2-0 in the division..GO BUCS!!!
September 25th, 2015 at 1:33 pm
The coach’s should practice pass catching on defense. I am not sure how many times defenders dropped potential INT so far this year. Have to capitalize on those opportunities.
September 25th, 2015 at 2:13 pm
i do give chris conte a hard time, but it says alot about him that the only 2 players on the field who reacted to it as if it were a fumble were him and drew brees. a couple heads up plays that don’t require some minimum level of talent, just practicing what the coaches preach.