Untimely Penalties
October 13th, 2016
Dumb penalties will limit Bucs.
In some ways, the Bucs beating the Stinking Panthers Monday night almost felt like a loss.
Joe had never seen a team struggle so mightily to beat a beaten down and decimated opponent with a garbage secondary, and down a starting quarterback, starting left tackle and starting running back.
To say the Bucs played sloppily on offense and special teams might be an understatement. Yes, a win is a win, but very little inspired Joe, except on defense.
Take the mental mistakes at the worst times, specifically penalties. Bucs coach Dirk Koetter addressed this nasty habit earlier in the week.
“Critical,” Koetter said of the penalties. “We had five penalties on the game, which as a number, if you just threw out five penalties, you’d say, ‘Heck, that’s not bad.’ But the timing of our penalties was not good. As you said, we had two third-and-one penalties. That first one was a third-and-one, they called us correctly for illegal procedure, followed up by a sack. So we were right on the verge of field goal range, got knocked out. The second time that happened, we had third-and-one on the five-yard line and we had them lined up just like we wanted them to – man, a great chance to punch it in and go up 10-0 and we get the back-to-back penalties.
“The second one, the delay of game, would be my fault. And then we miss a field goal, so we get no points. We didn’t throw it much there in the first [drive], but I think the second pass we threw all night, Jameis makes a beautiful scramble play, hits Vincent for a 20-something-yard gain and we get a holding call. And then obviously our defense stops them and we get the roughing the punter call.
“So the number of penalties was good, the critical level of those penalties was not good and that leads to the fact that when you’re plus-four in turnovers, it shouldn’t come down to a game-winning field goal.”
These are just common sense football mental errors. It almost seems like the offense was choking in these crucial situations.
It’s simply a matter of using your head. A close game and you get off the field on third down? Do not blast the punter!
Third and short? Know the snap count! Geez, it’s not rocket science.
Until the Bucs start correcting these mental errors, it’s going to be a chore for this team to run off wins no matter who it plays.
October 13th, 2016 at 9:04 am
Why are the Panthers the only one that get credit for having tons of injuries at key positions? It’s not like we had our full compliment and our team just wasn’t good enough to stand up to another team’s backups.
October 13th, 2016 at 9:09 am
Am I correct in saying that we didn’t have any defensive penalties at all?
If that is true, when is the last time that ever happened?……I certainly can’t remember.
October 13th, 2016 at 9:30 am
Patrick nailed it.
October 13th, 2016 at 9:34 am
The very end of his statement says it all. A good team would have buried that Carolina team. We absolutely dominated the time of possession in the first half and had very little to show for it, then we force I think 3 turnovers in the 2nd half and half to drive the field at the end for a potential game winning field goal.
They will not win many games playing like that. Our redzone efficiency is awful, just like last year. Points win games, not yardage and time of possession.
October 13th, 2016 at 9:53 am
The second penalty could have been easily prevented if the head coach was paying attention to the clock.
There was Howard Jones’ run into the kicker 15 yard penalty.
October 13th, 2016 at 10:05 am
@ d Rome
That was special teams
October 13th, 2016 at 10:50 am
More like a Panther’s loss than a Buc’s win. Anybody calling that a good football game? Looking ahead, do we expect to see another opponent throw an interception from the Buc’s one-yard line on a first-and-goal?
October 13th, 2016 at 10:57 am
It was ugly, plain and simple. We have to be better in those situations.
Man was that an ugly game!!!
October 13th, 2016 at 10:59 am
@jim- Remember the s.b. losing Seahawks did the same thing. That was great hustle all the way, not giving up on the play before. Reminds me of a few years ago when vanna jax got caught at the 1. Next play we fumble against the saints. Just good hard work by the d.
October 13th, 2016 at 11:04 am
glad to see dirk take responsibility…if he would’ve taken a timeout, it would’ve saved us from the delay of game penalty….cant complain too much because we got the “w” and that’s all I wanted…didn’t need to be pretty, just come out with a win….GO BUCS!!!!
October 13th, 2016 at 11:20 am
It was two GARBAGE teams trying to LOSE, and the Panthers were better at trying to lose. This game was a NATIONAL disgrace to Bucs and Panthers fans.
October 13th, 2016 at 11:20 am
Joe….can you have a stat person find out when.,…if ever we went an entire game without a defensive penalty…..?
I think Mike Smith is having an impact here.
October 13th, 2016 at 11:27 am
The fact that we only had 5 penalties is a win in itself. Wasn’t Lovie just defending himself about penalties on Saturday? “Ask me that question again”.
October 13th, 2016 at 11:34 am
It was a beautiful win in my book.
October 13th, 2016 at 11:41 am
I was curious of this myself so I took a look here to see if there were any defensive penalties. There were no penalties called against the defense.
October 13th, 2016 at 12:16 pm
TBBF is right. It is pretty rare to have no penalties in a game on defense and that was a very pleasant and positive take away from the contest. Honestly considering the injuries and this being the first year with Mike Smith’s system, I think the defense did pretty good. It is not as if Carolina was completely void of offensive fire power and D. Andersen is a very competent back up QB who has beaten the Bucs in the past. Hopefully the offensive side of the ball will start catching up with the defense.
October 13th, 2016 at 1:51 pm
@ D-Rome
I’m not sure we’ve ever done that in the history of the Bucs….
October 13th, 2016 at 1:54 pm
Nothing about the win feels like a loss to me. In every loss there are areas of performance that could have been better, and the team can learn from them. Other than bring out emotions from people who would like to see a black qb fail, I don’t see the relevance of this blog. In the final 2mins. the Bucs needed a score to win the game. Jameis,starting inside the 10 yard line, brings his team in position for the winning score w/2mins left in the game. Damn good win.
October 13th, 2016 at 6:41 pm
It was nice to see the defense not kill themselves with penalties but that unfortunately got overshadowed buy me because of the horribly timed pentaltys that this team continues to make. The penalty on Dirk koetter was the worst. This guy has not been prepared on the sidelines all year and it’s starting to get annoying. Our coach is actively hurting our teams because his head is not in the game. He needs to get better no excuses. The real boneheaded thing about all of it is that he hired a guy to help him with timeouts. I’m available every Sunday if he needs more assistance. I’ll even work for free. Get your head out of your ass Dirk.