Colts Adjusted; Bucs Didn’t
November 29th, 2015
The Bucs never had an answer for Colts OLB Trent Cole.
Today may be the first game all year that the Bucs had bad play from the offensive line. Not all game long, but most of the second half.
Joe paid quite a bit of attention to left tackle Donovan Smith, especially in the first half. Joe had his binoculars focused on him.
One-on-one, aside from one play, Smith owned defensive end Robert Mathis. However, when the Colts put linebacker Trent Cole on Smith, well, Smith struggled. On one play, Cole totally bull-rushed Smith and got to America’s Quarterback, Bucs signal-caller Jameis Winston.
In the second half, the Colts were bringing more guys and more blitzes and more stunts, and the offensive line broke down. Cole in particular went wild on Smith.
To Smith’s credit, the Colts were tricking him with stunts and blitzes. The Colts would send Mathis outside almost like a decoy and Smith took the bait, opening up a hole inside of him that Cole exploited often. Cole had three of the five Colts sacks.
For whatever reason, the Bucs never did, or couldn’t, adjust to the Colts’ Banzai charge up front, which bottled up the offense for much of the second half.
November 29th, 2015 at 5:55 pm
This is why loser Lovie is 7-20, he routinely gets out coached
November 29th, 2015 at 5:58 pm
Shhh. You’re not allowed to bash Lovie. He had a 2 game win streak that apparently validates him as some legit coach.
November 29th, 2015 at 6:04 pm
Yet the Bucs somehow had little pressure on the Colts QB who constantly found open receivers with a few lost Buc defenders surrounding the completed target.
November 29th, 2015 at 6:07 pm
So Lovie should have told Koetter to adjust that issue. But wait, everyonre has been crying for Lovie to leave Dirk alone and give him total offensive control…so which is it?
And btw couch. Lovie was legit before he even came to
November 29th, 2015 at 6:08 pm
Tampa.
November 29th, 2015 at 6:10 pm
Did you guys see the stats on QB hurries/hits/sacks. There was no great deal of difference.
Listen we all knew you glass half empty guys would show up immediately after a loss. One freaking loser here even posted that Lovie has lost the locker room.
This game was not that complicated and NEITHER coach was that terrific. The Bucs made the Colts one dimensional. They literally could not run the ball when it counted. The Colts gave it up in the first half but adjusted in the second blitzing and stuffing our run daring #3 to beat them.
So there you have it. In the second half BOTH teams forced the other team’s QB to beat them. Hasselback simply outplayed #3 bigtime. #3 ran around like a chicken with his head cut off at times trying to extend plays that just weren’t there. Hasselback threw the ball out of play. Hasselback was FAR MORE accurate than #3 although some of #3’s misses may have been the result of poor route running.
Whatever…a veteran QB on a THREE GAME WINNING STREAK at home stretched it to four games by outplaying a rookie. I love #3 as much as anybody. But he still has some growing pains…Hasselback does not and he won his FOURTH IN A ROW. We didn’t lose to chopped liver like we did on opening day. We have improved. It’s always frustrating to lose but as the man famously said…they pay the other guys too!!!
November 29th, 2015 at 6:16 pm
I agree with stpete on tho one
November 29th, 2015 at 6:18 pm
Lovie was legit before he even came to
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Maybe but he’s been nothing but a joke since he’s been here.
And St. Pete its just silly to think the game came down to nothing more than Matt playing better than Jameis. One team was prepared the 2nd half and the other wasnt. One team continually screwed themselves, the other didnt. This is what we’ve come to expect from a Lovie coached team. He isn’t 7-20 on accident.
November 29th, 2015 at 6:18 pm
DAMN!! Get em StPete!!
November 29th, 2015 at 6:19 pm
If at any point this team starts to regress under Lovie, then we all know what needs to happen. But at least be reasonable.
November 29th, 2015 at 6:22 pm
Very few if any coaches would be much better than 7-20, coming in after the 2013 season. Ev
November 29th, 2015 at 6:23 pm
en if they kept that overpaid diva Revis.
November 29th, 2015 at 6:27 pm
Right because Lovie has done a masterful job of coaching and has had very few mistakes. LoL. Lovie is a mistake prone coach and his team is following suit. Not sure how some cant see this. It’s been the same way ever since Lovie took over. Nothing has changed except a new QB and new OC. But still same mistakes repeatedly. Every time him and his team have a real chance to impress, they dont. But you’re right to hope we’re heading in the right direction because right now, hope is all it is.
November 29th, 2015 at 6:27 pm
CouchFan
This is what we’ve come to expect from a Lovie coached team
NO!!!! There is no WE in this. It’s YOU and the Lovieloser brigade. Argue for your limitations and they are yours. If you EXPECT that the coach sucks then you’ll see it in every defeat.
NO ONE in the NFL agrees with you. And NO Lovie has not lost the locker room.
He has not lost #3. We got beat by a good team at home with a red hot QB and that is the simple fact. We are now good enough to make that a game though. Stupid holding call…Evans drop…we’re getting really close THANKS TO LOVIE!!!
But we are not the only fair weather fan base. I went home to N. KY for Tgiving. It’s right across the river from Cincinnati and so all my cousins…and formerly me…are huge Bengal fans. Wanna know what they were talking about after dinner? Just like this blog about half of them are negative nellies.
They want to dump Dalton at QB. One of them even tried to say he’d rather see AJ McCarron. All the Red Rifle did is light up St. Louis for the Bengals 9th win.
And so I’m certain even if the Bucs won 4 of the next five but lost one a ton of posters would be here to yammer on about how bad Lovie is after the loss.
I guess that’s the nature of sports fans…at least some of them.
November 29th, 2015 at 6:32 pm
And so here is ESPN’s take from a national MORE OBJECTIVE position.
Hasselbeck has been playing with the efficiency of a quarterback half his age — and he proved it in Indy’s third consecutive win.
In the first matchup between the oldest and youngest starting quarterbacks in the NFL since December 2010, according to STATS, Hasselbeck easily outplayed Jameis Winston.
Hasselbeck finished 26 of 42 with no turnovers. He had a 100.8 rating and joined Brett Favre and Warren Moon as the only 40-year-old quarterbacks during the Super Bowl era to win four consecutive starts.
Winston was 20 of 36 for 245 yards with one touchdown, one interception and a rating of 74.4. The rookie also was sacked five times.
At least three of those sacks were on #3 for refusing to simply throw the ball away.
November 29th, 2015 at 6:34 pm
After the spit storm post Gruden, we had two options. Rebuild, which we did and did poorly like nearly every rebuild team ever. Or we could have tried to hold on to our old Domonik roster and maybe go 7-9 or something. Any respactable Coach and gm could see a rebuild was in order. And like I said rebuild teams almost always struggle. And here we are year two and there has been growth and who gets credit for that? THE COACH AND GM! So to conclude that Lovie sux because we struggled in year one of our rebuild and all the growth in year two is dome how despite him, it dosent work like that. And you are DELUSIONAL if you think another coach wpuld be better off during a rebuild. Spare me the hypotheticals.
November 29th, 2015 at 6:35 pm
You’re right. I apologize St. Pete. What I meant to say was anyone who is not a blind homer has come to expect this from a Lovie Bucs Coached team. When we continue to lose in the exact same way and only win once every 3 or 4 games. Continue your cheer routine for us. Tell us that we are still headed in the right direction and that past doesnt matter. Gonna need something/someone to keep our spirits up.
And btw I just love when people say idiotic things like “When we win the next 4 games…. ” right because we’ve come close already. LoL. Losing 4 is more likely.
November 29th, 2015 at 6:57 pm
While all the playoff talk is fun, it’s a dream. Loser Lovie will get out coached and out schemed week after week. Good teams don’t continue to make the same mistakes and beat themselves. Until they get the penalties under wraps they will be a losing team
November 29th, 2015 at 7:06 pm
Dont worry Tony, they’ll keep getting better. Alot of positives to build on going forward, especially compared to last year.
November 29th, 2015 at 7:27 pm
This is what happens when a bad team plays a good team with a good backup QB. Did you really think this team was that good against Dallas and Philly?? Go ahead and blame it on just a bad day at the office.
November 29th, 2015 at 7:28 pm
We got out outcoached
November 29th, 2015 at 8:27 pm
We got out outcoached
That’s fer sure!!! It’s Lovie’s fault that his rookie QB played like a rookie running around with his head cut off instead of throwing it away. Looking and looking downfield instead of understanding his hot reads and when he needed to QUICKLY get rid of the ball.
Just as it was Lovie’s fault that a QB in his 17th season DID know where the rush was coming from…where his hot reads might be needed…and when to simply throw it away.
Yep the players have no responsibility it’s all on Lovie!!!
November 29th, 2015 at 8:30 pm
St pete , aint it funny how none of them will answer the question i posed in y first comment on the article. They got nothin!
November 29th, 2015 at 9:38 pm
how is it Lovie’s fault that Koetter didn’t make any adjustments after the half and called one his worst games as a Buc?
November 30th, 2015 at 12:41 pm
The QB played like a rookie after a real nice stretch, I can live with that. Evans dropping a TD pass and our K mising a makeable FG and an XP were a big part of this but it is very hard to win a close game when you commit 12 penalties for 95 yards. Many of em came at the worst possible time, but when you consider we AVERAGE 10 penalties a game it is really just business as usual for our Bucs.
And that to me is on the Head Coach.
November 30th, 2015 at 8:21 pm
You tell ’em jerseybuc.
Not only were the penalties on this undisciplined team a killer for us, as they have been all year (hey, does anybody remember when the Schiano haters were talking about how penalties were a sign of bad coaching?) but the dagger in the heart came from our lazy defense, once again.
At 13:23 in the 4th quarter, with the Bucs only down by 7 points, our defense allowed the Colts to march down the field 76 yards and eat up 7:25 (!) to put the game out of reach. This happens game after game after game. That is a defense coached by Lovie Smith. It is a defense with an almost complete roster turnover to fit Lovie Smith’s defense. That is 100% Lovie’s defense. And it was 100% Lovie’s defense that let the Colts put the game out of reach.
LargoBuc, you are completely wrong in stating that Lovie had a crap team to work with after 2013. EVERY SINGLE ANALYST on the planet stated that Lovie was walking into a very very talented team. He was handed a good team and he ruined it. You may have hated Schiano but one of the most stated reasons he was run out of town was because he was not winning with the obviously talented team of players he had. Do not try to rewrite history.
And StPeteBucsFan, you write a lot. So here, let me return the favor.
We may be an improved team over last year but that is only because last year was a horrendous disaster. We are not a good team. It does not take much to beat last years performance and the fact that we are playing some of the crappiest teams in the league this year helps. The Dallas Cowboys with their third string QB, their best defensive player not playing, and on a 6 game losing streak? Yeah, not much competition there. The Eagles? hahaha. Mark Sanchez is a disaster and that team has quite. The Thanksgiving day game should be testament to that. The Jaguars? Yeah, we beat them. So does everybody. The Falcons? Man, they could not give us that game bad enough. They lost that game, we did not win it. They tried to give us that game on a silver platter and we barely won. The Saints? Sure, with a hurt Drew Brees and a defanged offense. And again, we barely won that one. We have not beaten any good teams this year. Not one. That is due mostly to us not having many good teams on our schedule. Let’s not jump up and down hollering that we are playoff ready or even a mediocre team yet until we beat some good teams consistently. If we do, by some ungodly chance, make it into the playoffs, we will be embarrassed by good teams. I do not want that to happen.
Oh, and we cannot get shellacked by teams like the Titans. Good teams do not let that happen. Zimmerman has the Vikings playoff ready after one year. Arians went 10-6 in 2013, 11-5 in 2014, and is looking to make another big playoff run this year. Of all the coaches hired in 2014, Lovie has his team at the bottom of the barrel. He is right there with Jay Gruden in Washington and the Lions with Caldwell (though he did take his team to the playoffs last year). Lovie is not a good coach.
Our offensive line is still terrible. Winston is the only reason why they have not allowed 1000 sacks. He has made the offensive line look much better than it is. Go watch some tape before you make these bold claims. If you watch it you will see our o-line getting pushed around and knocked down all the time. Winston is consistently under pressure. Winston has performed miracles behind that o-line.
You can support Lovie all day long but you need to realize you are supporting a loser. He has sucked since he has been here and he will suck until we run him out of town.