Lovie Channeling Greg Schiano?
November 18th, 2015
Former Bucs commander Greg Schiano wasn’t as crazy as some would have you believe.
Joe remembers the Bucs under former commander Greg Schiano, almost in a fit of desperation, went radical because they were so frustrated their front four couldn’t breathe on a quarterback.
Instead of beefing up the front line, they threw in the towel and decided that in order to stop the three stud quarterbacks in the division, they were going to beef up the secondary, instead.
The Bucs traded for Darrelle Revis and drafted Johnthan Banks. Suddenly, the cornerback problem was fixed.
Locally, folks — including ex-Bucs — howled in protest that Schiano was effectively out of his mind and should go back to the then-Big East Conference.
Well, fast forward a couple of years and it seems Lovie Smith is taking a page from Schiano. The defense, which was getting blow-torched, has settled down and turned in a helluva game Sunday.
The reason? Woody Cummings of the The Tampa Tribune stated the secondary is strong enough now that Lovie is playing more man-to-man defense and blitzing to cover for the impotent pass rush, two hallmarks of Schiano’s tactics.
“What has happened there, and it just started the last couple of weeks and you hope it continues if you are a Bucs fan, but what has happened there is they are getting the kind of cornerback play that they expected,” Cummings said while appearing yesterday on Miller and Moulton on WWCN-FM 99.3 in Fort Myers. “And what that has allowed them to do is blitz a little bit more.
“Now part of the reason they have had to blitz is that the pass rush is still not being generated by the front four. That is job-one in a Cover-2 scheme but they are not getting that done so Lovie has had to be a little more aggressive. He’s having to play a little more man-to-man. And he’s having to blitz a little bit more. But the blitzes are working because he trusts the cornerbacks, Sterling Moore and Jude Adjei-Barimah, and the safeties as well, to do their job on the back-end and that is allowing him to be more aggressive.
“They launched about a dozen or more blitzes at the Cowboys and just about every one of them was very effective. … They are finally getting to the point where they can do some of the things that Lovie Smith wanted to do with the defense and primarily two guys we didn’t expect to be a big part of this team this year, and that is Sterling Moore and Jude Adjei-Barimah.”
That is the thing: If a defense can’t get reliable coverage from its cornerbacks and the team blitzes, then it’s basically hanging the cornerbacks out to dry.
When Schiano did this, folks wanted to drag him through the streets of Ybor City. But now Lovie is doing this.
Guess the wins and close games are enough to keep the wolves preoccupied.
November 18th, 2015 at 9:08 am
I said it yesterday. It’s about results. When Schiano sent the whole team in at the QB to stop the run and attempt to get sacks the QBs just effortlessly lobbed passes over the rushing defense and destroyed us in the passing game. If the blitzes don’t come at the expense of the pass defense, it’s hard to argue with it. In the case of the Cowboys game, it didn’t effect the pass defense so there’s no problem. Should the secondary falls apart and the blitzes leave the secondary out to dry, as you said, then there needs to be an adjustment. The problem with Schiano is that there was never an adjustment. They just kept tearing us apart over the top.
November 18th, 2015 at 9:17 am
Toes on the line
November 18th, 2015 at 9:21 am
We played Matt Cassell and a broken down Cowboys offense. Follow it up with another game.
November 18th, 2015 at 9:25 am
@no bucs given – If we follow it up with another game then you’ll say that it was because we played Mark Sanchez because Bradford is hurt. You play who is on the field.
November 18th, 2015 at 9:28 am
No_bucs_given Says:
“We played Matt Cassell and a broken down Cowboys offense. Follow it up with another game.”
Don’t remember seeing you in the game.
you must be a blast to be with at the games.
November 18th, 2015 at 9:50 am
Common thread in both situations is a weak defensive line. It might be time to look at upgrading that unit and possibly coming to the realization that Gerald McCoy is not as good as he is made out to be.
November 18th, 2015 at 9:51 am
Joe- do you see Jonathan Banks working in at safety if he’s not going to fit as a Lovie corner?
November 18th, 2015 at 9:52 am
Don’t get me wrong he’s not a bad player but just more of a role player and not someone to build your defense around.
November 18th, 2015 at 9:52 am
Johnthan*
November 18th, 2015 at 9:55 am
Jonathan Banks may not want to move to safety. Safeties make less money and he may not want to risk being seen as a safety once he’s a FA in the next year or so.
November 18th, 2015 at 10:00 am
So maybe Lovie could’ve figured out how to play Revis after all. Where is the rewind button there.
November 18th, 2015 at 10:06 am
@TNew
I don’t think there was ever an issue with not being able to figure out how to use Revis the issue was is that one position worth 16 million a year.
November 18th, 2015 at 11:01 am
part of schianos problem was that he would use that ineffective dt and de stunt while blitzing a linebacker…the whole play would take too long and the qb had time to find an open wr…lovie ask his dline to win the one-on-one battle and send a delayed blitz…that way the linebacker is getting a clear read/rush lane on the qb…GO BUCS!!!
November 18th, 2015 at 11:21 am
The amazing thing is that it took Coach Schiano the same number of games as it took lovie years to figure this out!!!
November 18th, 2015 at 11:55 am
People need to get over Revis. I like Revis…he’s a HOF…but spending 16 million on a DB is just too much!! Revis is a mercenary, he has allegiance to no team, just his pocketbook.
A DB can do what…take a single top WR like Dez Bryant or ODB…they cannot take over a game and it’s easy to game plan around ONE great DB. 16 million was too much.
BTW Adam Schein this past week reporting that people in New York are upset with Revis because he’s playing beneath his salary and status.
The Jets are 5-4…one game better than us…what was our record when Revis was on our team. Which loss this year would he have prevented.
Schiano was a good man. Can’t ever forget how he treated Eric Legrand after his injury…spending all those nights after practice in LeGrand’s hospital room.
Schiano was truly a class act….but a horrid NFL coach.
Perhaps he’ll get the Cane’s job or another good college job. I think he might be able to succeed with the right college program.
November 18th, 2015 at 11:59 am
Matt Cassel is within a good qb of not being in the NFL, I cannot wait to see what lovie tries and cooks up against the iggles
November 18th, 2015 at 12:53 pm
This guy always quotes the commentators of the game acting like it’s his original observation.
November 18th, 2015 at 3:15 pm
How many big plays did the Schiano defenses give up? Just in opening week against the Giants in Schiano’s first game, I’m guessing there were more big plays than the Bucs have given up all this season. yes, the pass rush is impotent, and with the slugs we had at CB, we couldn’t stop passing games, but we didn’t get torched all at once like we did when Leonard, LaQuan, EJ, and Danny were manning the CB spots.
November 18th, 2015 at 5:06 pm
Greg who???
November 19th, 2015 at 5:05 am
Schiano never played Revis like a true lockdown corner. Still played zone, making him far less effective. And those D-line stunts we all hated…he never adapted or changed his gameplan until players were in full revolt.
Never was one calling for his head until we as fans created an environment around the team where it made it ok for the players to quit on him, at which time owners didn’t have a choice. Schiano deserved more time than we impatient fans gave him. I’ve learned from that and know we need to be patient and give the coaching staff time. I like how Lovie has not been afraid to make wholesale changes to get this ship righted and it sure seems like the arrow is pointing up doesn’t it?