“Impossible To Count On”
September 4th, 2015
Bucs icon Ronde Barber seemed to have a philosophical clash with Lovie Smith while serving as an analyst on the Bucs-Dolphins game last night.
Barber dared to say turnovers “are impossible to count on” for a defense.
Now Lovie doesn’t think like that. Lovie is obsessed with “takeaways,” as he calls them. They are critical, says the head coach. Joe already documented how inside the walls of One Buc Palace there are measures in place to have defenders always thinking takeaways.
“It’s always about the turnover ratio,” Lovie said last night after the Dolphins game with a smile in his voice, via the Buccaneers Radio Network.
Well, Bucs fans know that’s inaccurate. In the final year of the New Schiano Order, for example, the Bucs were a whopping plus-10 in turnovers. That was one of the best marks in the NFL, but the team finished 4-12. In 2010, the Bucs were plus-9 in that department.
There’s surely no harm in stressing turnovers, but Joe believes it can be overkill. A good percentage of turnovers have a high element of luck involved, or rely on the opposing team.
What Bucs fans have learned from history is what’s critical is to have turnovers become points on the board more often than not.
September 4th, 2015 at 11:54 am
Try focusing on scoring TDs. If Lovie thinks he’s going to beat tenn by letting them run up the gut all day and giving up 8 yard slant routes he’s terribly mistaken. When is the last time we had two consecutive 3&out on defense?
Worry about gap integrity, tackling and covering receivers and the turnovers will come. There’s a lot of poor tackling out there for a Lovie smith coached team don’t you think?
September 4th, 2015 at 11:55 am
Counting on turn overs is sort of like considering overtime or bonuses when you set a budget. Not very wise. We need to put more emphasis on getting pressure on opposing QB’s and let that result in interceptions. If you look back at our championship season, pressure on QB’s by Sapp and Rice led to many errant throws resulting in picks.
September 4th, 2015 at 12:06 pm
The reason that the Bucs were 4-12 with a +10 turnover margin is because the offense couldn’t score for their lives after getting the ball. How many 3-and-outs after a turnover did we see that year? At best we would turn a game changing turnover into a FG.
September 4th, 2015 at 12:11 pm
There’s surely no harm in stressing turnovers
I take your point Joe but I’m not sure I totally agree. I have seen defenders go at a ball carrier and make the punch at the ball and not wrap up and the ball carrier just keeps on going for more yardage.
Turnovers are great but if attempting to get them leads to poor tackling that’s a tradeoff I do not want to make. Sometimes you just have to wrap up.
September 4th, 2015 at 12:25 pm
In keeping with the flow, the Bucs are prone to three plays and a punt on offense. Defense tired before the half. Still I’m going out on my limb and call for a win at home in the opener. That in itself will be a huge weight lifted off the Bucs and their fans.
September 4th, 2015 at 12:30 pm
Bowers just got released
September 4th, 2015 at 12:31 pm
Lovie’s defensive philosophy, despite what play he calls is the following:
* Bend but don’t break.
* Keep the play in front of you.
* Take good angles to tackle.
* Go for a ball strip every time, especially when gang-tackling.
* Make the opposition have to grind (~3/YPP) out every offensive possession.
* Capitalize on every opposition error.
* Don’t give up any big plays.
I’m not so sure there is any “secret” defense Lovie can employ beyond the above.
Players make plays.
Coaches put them in the best position to make plays.
Some of the critique seems to be based more on talent vs scheme.
I doubt Lovie is having any problems knowing who has what skills for any given situation. Sometimes the positional talent isn’t available on our team……….
With that said, I’m a little baffled by (LB) K.Greene, leader in preseason tackles, being waived.
September 4th, 2015 at 12:34 pm
In every sport turnovers are important but I don’t understand how it can be a way to play !
in every sport, a team has been successfuldue to his strengh and confidence in his strengh. Turnovers are only the results of this strengh.
If your defenders are hitters, if they have the capacity to read the opponents plays, if they are where they have to be, they turnovers will arrive, unless you have a magic power to create turnovers and if we know something fro mlast seasan it’s that Coach Smith and GM licht are nor Merlin nor Dumbledore !
September 4th, 2015 at 12:55 pm
Yeah I’m sure Lovie ONLY cares about turnovers and just ignores every other aspect of football. Surely that type of coaching style is how he went 81-63 over 9 season in Chicago while having bad QB play throughout his tenure.
Surely we are better off with whatever the f*ck we were doing the last 100 games when we only won 30 total.
The year we won the SB was the year Gruden challenged the D to score what like 9 TDs via turnovers on the year? And they did.
Turnover margin has one of the biggest correlations to winning of any statistic in football. The analysts constantly hammer home that stat. So making it a point of emphasis isn’t something to complain or worry about whatsoever imo.
And it isn’t just about defense it also is about protecting the ball on offense. The fact that we had a great turnover margin last year and were so bad speaks to how horrifically & likely historically bad the offense was. We already know the team was a top 10 defense for the last 10 weeks in points allowed / yards allowed and now this is confirming it was also one of the better Ds for creating turnovers.
We would have went 9-7 last year if we could have just mustered 21 total points in 7 of our losses. Hell if we did that in just 5 of those losses we potentially win the division. Averaging 21 points per game would have been the equivalent of the 20th best offense in the league. Not a high water mark.
But hey the sky is falling and there is no hope right? Let’s mail this season in as fans and start talking about 2016 sucking / being even worse. Yipee!
September 4th, 2015 at 1:06 pm
Lord Cornelius is right.
Do not see the harm in instilling the mindset where you want to get the ball every play. Wasnt the last super bowl decided by a take away on defense?
September 4th, 2015 at 1:17 pm
I was trying to stay away until the games got real but I have no choice but to chime in. Lord C stop it.”That’s way too much insight and sensible thinking for many of jbf posters bro”.
September 4th, 2015 at 1:17 pm
He can’t stress sacks because our d-line can’t produce them regularly with the lack of talent we have at def. end so he has to stress something. Also he knows nothing about offense so there’s that.
September 4th, 2015 at 1:19 pm
Joe mama can you name a D end from last year’s Pats team?
September 4th, 2015 at 1:24 pm
Am I the only one who thinks Ronde is horrible in the booth? I appreciate what he did on the field but as for him behind the mike, it leaves much to be desired.
September 4th, 2015 at 1:32 pm
Yes Joe T. You are. Ronde does a great job.
September 4th, 2015 at 1:33 pm
Chandler Jones. 23 sacks in 3 years.
September 4th, 2015 at 1:48 pm
LordC
Amen brother!
September 4th, 2015 at 2:08 pm
The Tampa two always stress turnovers. Do you remember Dungy telling his players that Farve will give you at least 5 opportunities a game for an INT if we were prepared to capitalize and when we played them that Sunday, We had about four picks? That trend continued to the Superbowl. Gruden’s challenge was not to get turnovers because the bucs as a defense caused turnovers. His challenge was to score off the turnovers which they did. Fast forward to Lovie in his Chicago days and his defenses were always near the top in turnovers. You can definitely coach turnovers and Dungy/Lovie’s mindset in this regard has been successful. The number of turnovers their teams generated speaks to that. I am so sorry some of you guys missed that.
September 4th, 2015 at 5:58 pm
Rather him coach turn vs blitzing when a QB is taking a knee to ice a game… Or letting your players dictate how they want to play game to game… I will take Lovie’s coach vs or last two coaches anyday… In addition he should get AT MINIMUM the equal amount of time those two got combined to fix what they seriously screwed up do to incompetence FOR REAL!!! Granted I wish them both the best going forward!!!!
September 5th, 2015 at 12:34 am
If you score one more point than the other team, you win. Has anyone told the Bucs this?
September 5th, 2015 at 6:17 am
Turnovers sounds reactive, and I think “takeaways” sounds more proactive so I like it just fine. You could also see the D has a nose for scoring, the way they quickly get the ball heading in the other direction and start throwing blocks. So yeah we have weaknesses on D but we’ll be ok on that side of the ball