“There’s Somewhere Between Six Or Eight Drops In There”
October 6th, 2017
Victimized
Despite what many fans and amateur and professional football gurus may say, film study is a subjective process.
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. One man’s Bobby Rainey is another man’s Walter Payton. One man’s Michael Bennett is another man’s Daniel Te’o-Nesheim. And a drop isn’t always a drop.
The Buccaneers had costly issues squeezing footballs last night against the Patriots.
But how many drops were there?
For example, did Doug Martin drop two very catchable short passes, or were those throws significantly off target (too high) by America’s Quarterback, Jameis Winston?
Winning head coach Dirk Koetter went right to drops at One Buc Palace today when asked about Jameis’ overall performance following a review of the game film.
“Spectacular at times and, you know, [Jameis] made some incredibly good throws, some pinpoint throws under tough conditions. And also, again, dependin’ on who’s countin’, there’s somewhere between six and eight drops in there, eight on a high end,” Koetter said of his QB’s body of work against New England.
“It’s always a little bit debatable on what’s a drop. I mean, there’s some that were obvious drops. There’s some that, you know, Cam Brate had a couple balls that we’ve seen Cam catch them many times before. Last night he [didn’t catch] a couple of those you expected him to make.
“Then there were some other times when Jameis, you would have liked to see him get through his progressions a little bit quicker. And, you know, it’s a continual progression. I mean, I kept looking up there – you look up at the scoreboard and I think at the end of the third quarter they had 300-and-something yards and we had 180. And then when [team officials] gave me the stat sheet after the game and we had 409 yards and they had 406, I go, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ I think we ran 28 plays for 220-something yards in the fourth quarter. Now, plays and yards don’t score points. We have an explosive team; we had a bunch of explosives in the fourth quarter. We had nine for the game, but we also missed a couple that could have possibly turned the game around.”
Great stuff from candid Koetter in his answer. Man, Bucs fans are lucky to have a head coach who is willing to provide real insight.
Yes, Jameis missed throws and needed to be more precise. And he needed better hands out there for him, too. One good leg would be nice, as well.
October 6th, 2017 at 4:56 pm
Bobby Rainey was a beast. I still remember when he fumbled vs Minnesota and it got returned for a TD to end OT.
October 6th, 2017 at 4:56 pm
Not much on jw now. I thot he bounced back in a huge way. It was huge. And like every other qb that struggles against pats defense. He did ok imo
October 6th, 2017 at 4:59 pm
Glad I wasn’t the only one who saw the many drive killing drops.
Charles sims, and Cam Brate were key culprits.
The only throw that I would say Jameis made that absolutely cannot happen, is him overthrowing a wide open Djack for what would have been a 70 yard TD.
Jameis is far from perfect, newsflash, no QB is. Not even Tom Brady. And I would still take him as he is now, without even considering his upside ( 23 years old folks, there is such a thing as Development ), over Mariota and every other young QB in the game.
October 6th, 2017 at 5:03 pm
dexterOHMAN,
That was ASJ that had the ball taken right out of his hands.
October 6th, 2017 at 5:03 pm
Pat Murray signed yet?
October 6th, 2017 at 5:10 pm
I saw way more than 6 or 8 bad play calls last night. For the people freakin out over some bad throws by jameis, the coach, aka o coordinator, needs to help him out. Take the blame dirk, cut your kicker and put in a better game plan against arz. At least come up with adjustments faster if not. Man ive never been so disgusted over the play calling before, n ive seen alot of bad coaches here. Guess its cause the amount of talent they have now. Help em out dirk! Go bucs
October 6th, 2017 at 5:13 pm
Brate dropped an easy TD that was perfectly thrown. We can say all we want about the kicker and Winston and the other missed plays – but Cam squeezing that 1 ball likely wins us the game.
October 6th, 2017 at 5:14 pm
Koetter also mentioned that last play to OJ Jameis was on point. IF you play it back and read Jameis lips…the miscommunication was on OJ (he is a rookie). JW took all the blame…
I aaaam so glad Koetter laid it all out I knew what I saw, but there was a plenty of drops along with the kicker issue.
Koetter actually was very impressed by what HE saw on the film…cause he know we’re 2-2 and looking pretty good…
For the real fans not the fair-weathered…it was better than some thought and even more so Djack and Jameis started clicking 🤗
October 6th, 2017 at 5:15 pm
Not a clean game by any means, but they look very balanced. The defense nor the offense are playing spectacular football…but neither are horrible. I see things only going up form here. I’m surprised to say that with the defense.
Need a new kicker within ten days. Find a guy with some stones. Not necessarily someone who can kick the ball 64 yards but a guy thats knows no fear. A guy that will make 48 yarders all day with his eyes closed. Someone consistent. Can’t be that hard to find a guy that doesn’t choke under pressure. I don’t understand whats going on with kickers in Tampa but they come here and forget how to put it down the middle.
October 6th, 2017 at 5:16 pm
Man why so much dang negativity about Jameis. I’m trying to cover for him he did leave some throws on the field. But you guys expect perfection news flash fair weather fans it’s the NFL it’s tough. Week in week out it’s pretty much a toss up. Jameis put us in a position to win. Was it his fault Hargreaves was getting picked on all night, was the critical Brate td drop his fault, the multiple drops his fault, the bad penalty by Marpet not snapping the ball with the 10 sec run off his fault, o yea how about 3 missed field goals that must of been Jameis fault as well.
October 6th, 2017 at 5:17 pm
these idiots don’t understand NFL football. The Packers have only had 2 and yes I said 2 QB’s in 20 plus years and both are first ballot hall of famers. And the Packers have only won 2 Super Bowls in that time. So stop with this Jameis should’ve already figured this out crap. It’s the NFL Man it’s a tough league.
October 6th, 2017 at 5:21 pm
I guess Simms is not the receiver many thought he’d be
October 6th, 2017 at 5:29 pm
Despite inconsistent play by JW, missed TD catch by Brate and/or 3 FGs missed by Folk would have won game. Pick your poison.
October 6th, 2017 at 5:34 pm
still cannot imagine koetter hardly played DM22, Jameis is a warrior, he played well, poor play calling led to inability to get 3rd downs for 3 quarters, koetter could stand to explain that.
October 6th, 2017 at 5:39 pm
Great analysis by the coach. Not where we would like to be but we will get there very soon, this year. We need to get a bit healthier, keep the penalties down (nice job all year imo) and maintain momentum on our drives. Note: when healthy we should be able to apply more pressure on the front and back ends. Keep the faith! Go Bucs!
October 6th, 2017 at 5:42 pm
The first Doug Martin “drop” wasn’t a drop at all. He had no chance at that ball unless he had a longer reach. The second target was a drop, but hardly a perfect throw from Jameis that Brate dropped later on in the game,
October 6th, 2017 at 5:54 pm
I would have never imagined that our defense minus Kwon AND LVD could play so well against Brady and crew.
To be honest…while I was never confident in Folk I was shocked when he missed those kicks….I thought the law of averages was starting to pile up in our favor…how many can he miss?
And so it’s a game that turned out being far less meaningful than we expected going in….a watershed game…a game we turn the corner for real….NAH…it was a boring game with two good teams still trying to put it all together.
We’ll feel badly because we should have won if our kicker just makes his kicks.
We’ll feel we dropped and overthrew enough to easily win this game.
But then a win against this Patriots team would not have represented a benchmark anyway.
This game told neither team much about itself for 2017. The Pats will probably rebound to win their division again but they don’t really look like SB contenders.
The Bucs are still growing with all the pains represented by that growth. Hang on boys 2017 is going to be a bumpy ride!
October 6th, 2017 at 6:10 pm
They shouldn’t had the opportunity to drop so many passes. Why run the ball 20 times, and throw the ball 46 times? The O-Line was moving the Pats D-Line and creating holes. Doug was hitting them for 5-6 yards every pop. The Pats had no answer to the Bucs run game.
October 6th, 2017 at 6:32 pm
Most of those drops came bacuase the Pats DB’s were yanking down the arms of the Bucs WR before the ball ever got there. The NFL wasn’t going to let the Pats fall below .500 – and the refs made sure that Pats defense was suddenly viable. Mix that with plays like Simms having the call go through his hands and you got what you got. Then again Winston passed for over 300 yards again and once again had zero turnovers – so the Winston bashers, who care more about turnovers than W’s, they should be estastic! Oh wait, the Winston haters are fake news so they still hate him and will say the same copy and paste things as always.
On the legit side of things it was very windy last night – I’m not totally sure that the opening INT by Brady wasn’t just a pass that took off on him in the wind. For Jameis he had some missed throws – which is what happens when you play QB in the NFL. On the early pass to Martin I’m not sure if that was on Winston or Martin, did Martin run the route to shallow or did Winston just sail it? On the long pass to D-Jax, that’s just a very difficult throw to make on a windy night – there’s a reason why Brady didn’t throw anything more than about 15 yards downfield.
October 6th, 2017 at 6:34 pm
Gencoimports- Not so sure I agree about the first pass to Martin. It was high – not the ball you want from JW – but It definitely seemed to be in DM’s reach. It actually looked to me like he lost it in the lights the way he put his hands up.
October 6th, 2017 at 6:40 pm
Dirk needs to be called out for his awful play calling – he’s getting worse and worse by the week. With Dirk it’s either everything is a run up the middle – or he gives up on the run in the first half and goes to goes to shotgun. Dirk there is this thing called a play action pass. Here’s a hint – if you run the ball down the throat of the Pats and score a TD, on the next series don’t come out in shotgun. I actually don’t have an issue with not running in first down – just don’t come out in shotgun and tell the Pats you’re not running the ball. It makes no sense to come out on that drive in shotgun and throw it from shotgun 3 times in a row. You just setup the run on the last series – make the Pats worry about that by coming out in a normal set. It’s all or nothing with Dirk almost all the time and there is no thought put into his play calling. It’s amazing how bad Dirk is as a play caller since getting the HC job – to me it’s obvious he’s overwhelmed and shouldn’t be calling the plays or he should have a voice he listens to that tells him he’s being ultra predictable and giving huge tells on every series.
October 6th, 2017 at 6:44 pm
Jamies needs to do much better, no way is he a franchise QB yet. Most good college QB’s could of made the throws he missed. We all want Jamies to be great but let not say he’s there until he really is. Not America’s QB yet !!!
October 6th, 2017 at 6:49 pm
The reason this game settings is because we feel we should have won. Yes the kicking was to bad for words, yes we had drops, and penalties. At the end this team almost overcame those issues, and probably should have won. It almost would have been easier if Brady had had a hall of fame game and crushed us. They say more games are lost in the NFL than are won, here is one of them. What I did like was the fight in the team. Given the failures in the kicking game the team never quit. Think about our previous Thursday night thumpings. The fight in this team leaves me hopeful.
October 6th, 2017 at 7:22 pm
Folk looked scared before each kick…especially the final whiff. He barely…and I mean barely hit the game winner vs the Giants. He is done. He’ll be paid out his entire salary whether he’s on the team or not. He looks ready for some paid “leave”.
October 6th, 2017 at 7:38 pm
@Joe … “Great stuff from candid Koetter in his answer.”
@Reach87 … “Great analysis by the coach.”
@FireTheCannons … “Still cannot imagine Koetter hardly played DM22, Jameis is a warrior, he played well, poor play calling led to inability to get 3rd downs for 3 quarters, Koetter could stand to explain that.”
@Lakeland … “The Pats had no answer to the Bucs run game.”
@Rod Munch … “Dirk needs to be called out for his awful play calling.”
@darin … “I saw way more than 6 or 8 bad play calls last night. For the people freakin out over some bad throws by jameis, the coach, aka o coordinator, needs to help him out. ”
OK, my question: Did we all watch the same game? Joe & Reach 87, a ‘candid’ Koetter should’ve said “My bad. I played right into Belicheck’s hands with the game I called as OC.” We pissed away over three-quarters of the game with bad play-calling (and the 4th quarter play-calling wasn’t all that stellar either). With the way our defense held the Pats to FGs, Bucs should’ve been up by at least 28-16 (probably more) by the time we were 1 min into the 4th quarter. Instead, we were put into a position where we had to punt 6 times & missed 2 FGs by that point.
Sorry, but I agree with FireTheCannons, Lakeland, Rod Munch & Darin … Bucs had the weapons to win this game going away, but ‘awful play-calling’ never allowed those weapons to come into play.
October 6th, 2017 at 7:40 pm
nice article joes!
October 6th, 2017 at 8:17 pm
“One man’s Michael Bennett is another man’s Daniel Te’o-Nesheim.”–What a great quote, for those of us who follow the Bucs. Joe, you guys are really, amazing writers. Shakespeare would be proud had he heard of Daniel Te’o-Nesheim.
October 6th, 2017 at 8:20 pm
Joe please consider an article regarding koetter’s play calling, so clearly it is behind the inability to convert on a 3rd down for 3 quarters. This loss is on him and Folk.
October 6th, 2017 at 9:18 pm
Rod and Lakeland they’re trying to ignore you two but after having what was a “incompetent” defensive HC in lovie smith it appears now we have a incompetent offensive HC in dirk koetter.
October 6th, 2017 at 9:30 pm
I have missed a lot of play this year, but saw most of this game. Didn’t seem like they are getting Evans as involved…. not just that he’s dropping or being missed.. just not even thrown to. His production has been way down.. what’s the deal? Trying to force it to Jackson because of his complaints? Is this a case where the offense might actually have too many superstars? Is Jackson actually negatively impacting the offense? Feel like things moved smoother even when he was throwing to Evans in double coverage last year and mixing in Brate and Humphries
October 6th, 2017 at 9:31 pm
I mean he was the kind of guy where he doesn’t even have to be open and when Jamie’s was in trouble he could always rely on him.. often coming back up field with two guys draped over him
October 6th, 2017 at 9:38 pm
If you were to ask a lifetime Bucs fan to come up with the sort of game that personifies a Buc team historically, this would be that game. It’s like groundhog day. ….we historically more times than not find ways to beat ourselves. I’m convinced this was groundhog day.
October 6th, 2017 at 9:52 pm
Any of you guys that know me know that I was one of the only Gators fan on board with the Winston signing. I am Still on board with how he has changed the culture of our team. Mariota couldn’t have done this. All that said JW3 shat the bed for the first three quarters!. I mean TB12 hadn’t thrown a pick all yr. We got one and got Zero points. We had only one sack ALL yr and we had THREE last night! No “W” though. JW has to step it up!
October 6th, 2017 at 9:54 pm
Winston didn’t lose that game the team did. He didn’t play well and missed throws but clean passes were dropped and kicks were missed. To blame Winston for all of it makes you ignorant. Dropped passes, 3 missed fg, and subpar play from our qb and we beat the spread. Smh fairweather fans!!!!
October 6th, 2017 at 10:03 pm
With Doug coming back we all knew he was going to get the carries with what he showed in the preseason being by far our best back my concern was ball security. I did not conceive they were going to ask him to receive the ball. That is totally different. The timing from the QB and his ability to catch it is a different level when being out for that long… The pass in the flats that was missed was a little to much to be asked for IMO!
October 6th, 2017 at 10:21 pm
This is an encouraging game imo. This team can get it done. We have issues like every team us being youth. Without some star players we did good. One play away after that mess against 5 times sb championships. U know at least it wasn’t a blow out like the rest of them u know like 56 -0 3rd quarter
October 6th, 2017 at 10:31 pm
SB I’m starting to think his skillset would be better suited for the offensive scheme they run over there in Tennessee. The titans are not forforcing that young man to throw 40 to 45 times a game. They are protecting his development with a potent running game. The way steelers did with Ben early on,same with how the seahawks did with Russell early on. He doesn’t have hardly enough notches on his belt to be being ask to chuck it up and down like Aaron freakin rodgers. I mean does this HC study any film,does he not see Fameis struggles in certain areas of the game???
October 6th, 2017 at 10:45 pm
I mean memo to this incom,let me stop. Memo ro dirk koetter he struggling wit his deep ball. So why in the f@$# do you persist on calling them. Brady earned the name GOAT by mostly dinkin and d+×; donkin the better part of his whole d&€£ career.
October 6th, 2017 at 11:20 pm
Koetter made life absolutely HELL for Jameis on Thursday night. Bellichik had the right defensive call on seemingly every offensive play in the first half (and most of 3rd quarter). Had Koetter just run the ball in the red zone, we come away with 3TDs and no need for Folk. The run sets up the pass, and Jameis constantly had the deck stacked against him with the play-calling.
Now, on the other side, look at Brady. He & his coach got out of bad play calls & into good ones, where there was constantly a guy getting open–and Brady is the best in the business at getting the ball out very quickly and throwing his man open.
As others have said, Brady makes a living with dinks & dunks, & if you know WHEN to do that, you give your guy a chance to turn upfield–YAC is how Brady got most of his stats. These concepts need to be passed along to Koetter, Monken, et al along with JW. We DON’T HAVE TO try to push the ball down the field all the time, a strategy which is very low-percentage success against today’s ultra athletic NFL defenses.
October 6th, 2017 at 11:24 pm
joes, I will say it again thank you. I’m sort of a lone wolf being a bucs fan in Chicago. My dad admits he wishes the bears had website such as yours. Thank you. Please keep up the hard work
October 6th, 2017 at 11:34 pm
Pat McAfee has reached out to the bucs on Twitter…let’s go Jason!! jump on it now!!
October 6th, 2017 at 11:43 pm
I don’t understand the McAfee twitter thing. He’s a punter
October 6th, 2017 at 11:47 pm
@DCookRules
I don’t know about all that. Dirk didn’t drop the pass, Brate did. Dirk didn’t miss D Jax for a 70 Yd TD, Winston did. I don’t think Dirk’s playcalling is as much of a problem as him using the wrong guys. Martin should have been used more. Sims adds little and we weren’t down big enough in this game to panic. Brady had fits against our defense and they struggled to cash in all night. With all the finger pointing, if our kicker just hits 1 of 3 and the game winner, we still would have won.
October 6th, 2017 at 11:57 pm
My question is what happened in the fourth that suddenly made plays start working? Did we change how we were calling plays or did the Pats go with a softer defense?
If we had moved the ball in the other quarters like we did in the fourth we win the game easy.
The defense overall played a solid game, Folk needs to go, the play calling needs to be smarter, and we need to catch the balls that are catchable.
October 7th, 2017 at 2:54 am
I went back, and watched the game again. Especially they drops.
New Englands secondary is very good.
Dont care what happened to them before
They played the Bucs great.
Several of the “drops” , were knocked out by the Pats. They were also waving hands in our recievers face all night.
After watching it again- it was a game we should have won.
The 56 yarder probably wasnt gonna happen. But if either of the other two kicks were made- it would have changed the dynamic of the game. Brady id forced to go for TDs, not field goals.
With an Average kicker- we beat the champs, who played very well.
October 7th, 2017 at 4:53 am
Drop yes, but let’s not act like Jameis doesn’t have a real life problem of overthrowing and under throwing his targets w/o discrimination. Honestly about 4/5 situations in the Patriots game alone where Jameis’ “accuracy” was way off in crucial moment. Like that Go route to Jackson where he regularly under throws him especially, drops were prevalent, but if where talking about a system being built around the QB, than any era he makes is double as bad as anyone else, because Winston touches the ball the most, furthermore, Jameis has a problem overreacting to the rush
October 7th, 2017 at 6:51 am
Cut your effin kicker already ! Hell , call John Lynch up , he would sub in on kicks every now and again in a pinch and I don’t remember him being as bad as this dopey moron ! Jameis will be fine..there were throws to brate that he does normally catch , there were those 2 at Doug I thought had just a little to much mustard on them and there were a few left to be desired to djax..but I’m proud of jameis ! Cut your effin kicker ! Cut the gull damn kicker ! Hey , cut that middle school dopey kicker !!
October 7th, 2017 at 8:23 am
Gnawesome ……BINGO !….
“Jameis has a problem overreacting to the rush”
indeed he needs to watch the 8 quarters of Manning and Brady these past two games…two old stiff legged old vets…working the pocket
October 7th, 2017 at 9:37 am
It is a combination of some off target throws and drops.
If a receiver can get his hands on it, he should catch it. That’s the old saying. But the quarterback can help it by being a little more accurate and hitting people in stride.
October 7th, 2017 at 10:07 am
If take a 23 year old brad Johnson over 3
October 7th, 2017 at 10:18 am
I think Koetter is the equivalent of Dungy, bringing this team back to respectability, but we will not get over the top with him. There’s another Gruden-type out there the Glazers will have to find that will wind up getting us to the top.
October 7th, 2017 at 10:34 am
Destiny just stop. A 23 year old brad Johnson was terrible. You clowns are insufferable. Keep in trolling dude. Brad johnson won a super bowl with the best defense we’ve ever put on the field. My goodness some of you are dense.
October 7th, 2017 at 1:05 pm
Ch master pull up the stats…
Winning a super bowl is over rated
Not knocking 3 just think brad was better