“Maybe You’re Not Playing As Hard As You Possibly Can”
November 14th, 2015
Lovie opens up
Joe has been hypersensitive to the Buccaneers’ effort ever since Lovie Smith blasted it back in September.
“Last year the crowd showed up. We didn’t,” Lovie said.
The topic of effort was reintroduced by Lovie yesterday during his weekly video chat with Scott Smith of Buccaneers.com.
Lovie was asked about playing tight games and whether he thinks Sunday against Dallas will come down to big plays.
Lovie took his answer in a somewhat surprising direction.
“When you lose close games, normally it’s about discipline. Maybe you’re not playing as hard as you possibly can,” Lovie said. “So those are things that we need to clean up first. Then from there, it’s always about when you get in position, your playmakers stepping up. Ours have. And we’ll expect them to do it this week.”
Joe finds it telling that the coach, who measures his words carefully, went to the effort card. It could explain a lot of his personnel shuffling.
November 14th, 2015 at 8:38 am
I like benching players…..chewing out players on the sidelines….and even calling out players in public if necessary……they are paid millions of dollars to perform and need to be accountable.
Sure, Lovie is ultimately responsible but he’s got players who are going to get him fired…..
Spence was a good example of pure stupidity and I’m sure it will cost him in the end…..I will be watching to see his effort tomorrow.
November 14th, 2015 at 8:41 am
Effort is the single most important quality of any athletic endeavor.
If players leave it all out on the field then the next most important factor is discipline. If the players give their all and play with discipline that’s all you can ask. If you lose then it’s because the other team was simply better, has more talent…or wait for it…tmax and realist…you get outcoached!
I think most of us are not that concerned with effort going forward. While I concede it’s been a huge problem in the past and may have infected some of the older vets on this team our young core going forward is terrific.
Can anybody…even the most ardent hater of #3…seen even a HINT of JW not leaving it all on the field. Same for Kwon and Ali and our other young players.
I’m also impressed enormously with #3’s discipline. After the bad ints he buckled down and choked down his desire to simply let er fly and play reckless football. I think this stretch of int free games shows a ton about #3 besides gaining experience and having the game slow down a bit for him.
It shows me that #3 does have the committment, effort, and most important in the case of ints the discipline to restrain his natural desires. That’s really a hard thing to do. Change is one of the hardest thing asked of any human. Habits are hard to break and so I admire #3 for this. Yeah he may toss a couple of picks tomorrow but not because he’s playing out of control.
November 14th, 2015 at 9:40 am
Agree completely with the two post above so far…
Once Lovie is getting 100% every play from everybody and still is getting be. He will no longer have my support. However I don’t see that happening… I don’t blame him for getting rid of some decent players on a losing team… It should have sent a message and motivated others to step it up… Mainly the FA he brought in to replace people… But those guys let him down as much as anyone… So he has gotten rid of them went with more hungry guys and is now calling out the effort of the guys we all hope to be our studs…. In other words…. Changing a losing mindset ain’t easy and it infects others like a highly contagious virus… So let’s hope he has contained the virus mentioned and is now shifting the focus to becoming all that you can be…
I give him to the end of his contract before I will say anything seriously negative… The guy is was and will be the best coach available that has been willing to stick his career reputation and neck on the line to try to turn this ship around…. If he fails so be it but give him the time we agreed on to turn it around…. That is the ONLY THING that will attract better coaching to a team…
November 14th, 2015 at 9:47 am
Let’s be real lovies practices and training camps are the easiest in the nfl.
Does anyone think their play doesn’t represent that?
November 14th, 2015 at 10:00 am
Man this pisses me off! Lovie needs to take some damn responsibility instead of blaming the players for every little thing. Isn’t it YOUR job to get Tennessee ready? Isn’t it YOUR job to find the best cornerback combination sometime before the middle of the season? In fact it’s YOUR job to find the best personnel in general, not flipping Kyle Briznda, a 58% kicker in his finial year of college. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it is YOUR job to fix the worst red zone defense in the NFL and it is YOUR job to get YOUR team ready to play smart and hard, each and every week! If we lose this week, we better fire Lovie. Simple as that! I’m sooooo tired of the excuses each and every week. We have a good team, not far from being a great team. We have the worst head coach in the NFL and it’s not even really that close.
November 14th, 2015 at 10:04 am
@StPeteBucsFan … great post. Jameis improved tremendously already this year and is the franchise QB we’ve needed for … ever. He isn’t the one who’s losing us games, nor has it been any 1 or 2 particular players. I think 4 things have hurt us:
1 – Penalties, on both sides of the ball. And not just penalties … STUPID penalties. And not just STUPID penalties … STUPID penalties at the worst possible times.
2 – Playmakers not making plays at critical times. Mike Evans is the poster child for this one, but he’s not alone; there are plenty of others. And yes, Jameis has had his troubles here too, especially in the Red Zone.
3 – Defense not stopping folks on 3rd down. This one we’ve all beat to death, but letting opponents consistently convert 3rd-and-longs is just unacceptable.
4 – Coaching faux pas during games. We’ve played much too conservative, on both sides of the ball, last year and this year. The difference between getting a TD vs settling for a FG is often the difference between winning and losing in today’s NFL. And Lovie settles for FGs far too often in my opinion. His time management techniques need work (wasted time-outs drive me nuts). Putting games in the hands of a defense that’s tired and struggling at the end of games also leaves me shaking my head.
November 14th, 2015 at 10:11 am
@fsuking
You’re right on almost all points but you can’t fix anything without good players and if you say it’s his job to get good players in there then give me examples of good players that were available that they didn’t bring in?
November 14th, 2015 at 10:11 am
Yep FSUKING Lovie is to blame for every false start, late hit, dropped ball and fumble we have. Do you even hear yourself? If our million dollar players did their job then this team would be 6 and 2 right now.
November 14th, 2015 at 10:48 am
Not being able to cover simple slants, No pressing or jamming of receivers at the line of scrimmage has cost the bucs at least 2 games for sure. And pass rushing is an all together different talk. Lovie needs to draft big on Defense next year. Real Big.
I Just don’t see that passion or drive on D. No hard hitting or flying around. We got spoiled here in TB for a long time with some great Defenses and no offense. Now its the complete opposite. Watch to see if we can get a pass r ush against the Cowboys. If not? Its gonna be a long long day.
November 14th, 2015 at 11:31 am
Lovie is always talking about cleaning up something about the Bucs. By now this team should be spic and span squeaky clean, yet instead Murphy’s law applies to the Bucs carry through. Whatever can go wrong will.
November 14th, 2015 at 12:58 pm
Lovie is always talking about cleaning up something about the Bucs.
True dat! I’ve got something for Lovie to clean…how about we go out tomorrow and clean Dallas’s clock.
November 14th, 2015 at 1:14 pm
This team is on the right path and our offense particularly is going to be scary good going forward. I agree with the Jameis comments above. He has been a huge bright spot for us an I love this kids passion for the game. His personality is exactly what this team needed. In fact I will throw in Marpet and Kwon I to the equation. My gut feeling says the bucs win tomorrow and Evans goes off and only has one drop.
November 14th, 2015 at 2:47 pm
I have been pretty critical of Lovie and things I think he can do better over the last two seasons. However….you have to consider that we have a rookie qb in his first year with a new oc….and also needing to be considered on the other side of the ball is that Lovie has given in to the overall consensus of fans opinions and has done everything in his power to start the turnaround for this team on offense by drafting only one defensive player in the last two drafts….who is doing a great job calling the defense as a rookie. Lovie will not be fored this year or next. He will surley draft his defensive players over the next couple of drafts and the glaziers seem to be willing to give him five years to get this team firing on all cylinders. My biggest fear that is sure to happen is that we will lose dirk koetter and winston will regress. I just hope that somehow koetter is either made the head coach or at the very least sticks around for the next couple seasons to groom winston. Maybe he would rather stay an oc and we can keep the current voaching staff in place for years to come. Sometimes I think continuity is under rated