Inside The Injury Excuse
January 17th, 2018
For those seeking silver linings and happy thoughts to consider while you suck your thumb to sleep at night during this 10-year Bucs playoff drought, Joe’s got potentially heart-warming data.
Of all 22 opening day starters on the Buccaneers’ offense and defense, only one man lasted in that role every game, left tackle Donovan Smith.
Joe has referenced this previously, but how does that compare to the rest of the NFC South?
Well, while mowing down an amazing salad, trans-fat-free, house-cut french fries and the best boneless chicken anywhere at Abe’s Place, Joe did the research.
The Saints had six starters line up for the opening whistle in every game this season. The Falcons had 11 of their 22, and the Panthers had 10.
That’s a huge gap to the Bucs’ one year-long starter.
Buccaneers icon Ronde Barber noted this during a recent visit to CBS Sports Radio and it clearly left an impression on him.
“So in defense of Dirk [Koetter], he’s done a pretty good job developing Jameis Winston as a quarterback and dealing with a lot of adversity,” said Barber, who went on to talk about how the Bucs played so many close games against good teams late in the season.
In 2016, the Bucs had eight offensive/defensive players start every game.
Injuries are a part of the NFL. And because they’re so prevalent, they really can’t be an excuse. But it is interesting to wonder what would have happened this season if the Bucs had managed to avoid such a rash of key injuries.
January 17th, 2018 at 11:46 am
It’s not an excuse but it sure as f*ck matters and has an extreme effect on teams as we just saw. I mean that Vikings game for example – we basically had our entire starting defense wiped out. We were f*cked before kickoff.
And look at Atlanta – when their O-line didn’t get injured all year they had the best offense in the league. Health definitely matters. It also is a reminder of the importance of quality depth which we didn’t have at all on D-line / DE / CB.
January 17th, 2018 at 11:50 am
Speaking of Vikings they lost their starting qb and rb and look at them now . I scratch my head when people complain about Winston with the amount of holes on this team . Maybe I misread that the Bucs were 4th in the nfl in passing . I wonder what percent of Winston bashers on here are depressed Tebow fanboys who can’t think clearly through their jealousy
January 17th, 2018 at 11:51 am
Typical Klueless Koetter full of excuses. When is everyone gonna admit he’s not that good of a head coach. Better OC.
Koetter made no excuses here. Why make stuff up? –Joe
January 17th, 2018 at 11:53 am
You could actually combine this with your last article Joe. Does it all go back to training camp? Not tough enough? Players not used to contact.
January 17th, 2018 at 11:54 am
Do injuries explain why Mike Smith couldn’t figure out how to line up his best corner on Julio Jones for even a majority of the snaps? Do injuries explain repeated deep throws that harmed offensive efficiency?
January 17th, 2018 at 11:56 am
You can not use it as an excuse because it looks weak, But it does matter!!!!! Just like strength of schedule matters!!!!!! Over coming injuries just means you have development and quality depth!!!!! But no team is 3 deep at every position!!!!!
Go Bucs!!!!!!!!!!!!
January 17th, 2018 at 12:02 pm
buddy Says:
January 17th, 2018 at 11:51 am
Typical Klueless Koetter full of excuses. When is everyone gonna admit he’s not that good of a head coach. Better OC.
I missed the part where Koetter was making excuses. Help me out here?
January 17th, 2018 at 12:07 pm
“development and quality depth”…which comes from……COACHING!
Coaching is what matters when injuries occur. That, and talented depth. Game-plans should be designed around the players strengths who are starting, substitute or not. Game-plans should be fluid to accommodate WHEN, not if, injuries occur.
We did poorly on both sides of the ball in this regard. Injuries will happen, are you prepared for them is the question.
January 17th, 2018 at 12:12 pm
If you hate Koetter, this is nothing but more excuses for a coach that you think is terrible. If you like Koetter, this is a legit reason as to why we didn’t have much success this season. It’s always amazing to me how fans can manipulate stats to fit their agenda. I’ve learned that it is impossible and pointless to argue with people who have already made up their mind.
Like in most cases, the truth falls somewhere in between the two extremes. Fact of the matter is you are crazy if you think this isn’t relevant. However, you don’t think there’s a correlation between our soft training camps and the amount of injuries we had? Of course there is, and that falls on the coach. On the other hand, some of the injuries are just plain old bad luck and would have happened regardless.
We really don’t know if Koetter is a good coach. He’s definitely done some good things, and he’s done some questionable things. Is he better than Lovie, Schiano, or Raheem? Abso-freaking-lutely! Is he good enough? Time will tell. But we will never know until we actually give him some time. Firing the coach isn’t always the answer. He had a lot of things go wrong this year that was completely out of his control. He deserved another year to show if last year was a fluke.
January 17th, 2018 at 12:27 pm
My question is, how many of these guys were tearing up the league before their injury? It seems like their injury benefited the Bucs. The bucs did play better at the end of the season.
January 17th, 2018 at 12:30 pm
@Joe so you made up the injury excuse with your headline of this article??
January 17th, 2018 at 12:30 pm
“That’s a huge gap to the Bucs’ one year-long starter.”
Thank you, J0E, for doing that research.
The haters will always try to turn it around or discount it, but those of us with clear minds see it. I did, though I didn’t think it was that bad! One player only. Wow.
I wonder how that compares to the rest of the NFL?
January 17th, 2018 at 12:31 pm
It’s not like the Bucs lost 3-4 All-pro players to injuries. It’s more likely they lost 2-3 Bums to injuries.
January 17th, 2018 at 12:31 pm
@Hawaiian
I’m not sure if the soft training camps are the reason or not but either way I’d think soft camps may have had an effect on us being a soft team / soft defense.
Also agree that Koetter is the best coach we’ve had since Gruden even though I was massively disappointed in a lot of what he did last year. At least when he speaks I feel like he kind of knows what he’s talking about. Schiano had some pretty insane quotes in his time here that made me think he was a nut job. Lovie didn’t own up to anything whereas Koetter will at least eat some crow and own his sh1t candidly. Raheem was just way too green
January 17th, 2018 at 12:34 pm
They lost 12-13 Bums to injuries
January 17th, 2018 at 12:35 pm
@LakeLand
You also have to consider players that were playing thru their injuries as long as possible, and how that affected their performance. For example, Jameis played injured for weeks before they finally forced him to rest. McCoy is always playing injured. Marpet did this year as well.
The issue is that some of the injuries were just bad luck…others were because the players are prone to injury for whatever reason. Licht will need to find a way to compensate for that.
Imagine, if you will, if we had only lost, say, 5 starters. How different would the season have gone? A lot different I would say. And so the predictions for lost year were not as lofty as believed at the end of the season. The injuries just messed it all up.
But I don’t for a second believe it was because Koetter went easy on them. It was just bad luck.
January 17th, 2018 at 12:36 pm
Of course injuries matter.
anyone think the Eagles have just as good a chance with Foles as they would with Wentz?
Always plays a huge role every year.
January 17th, 2018 at 12:37 pm
LakeLand Says
“It’s not like the Bucs lost 3-4 All-pro players to injuries. It’s more likely they lost 2-3 Bums to injuries.”
Okay, going by that theory, let’s say 3 bums. Out of 21 injured starters. That means they lost 18 good starters. Still kind of high, don’t you think?
January 17th, 2018 at 12:39 pm
Lakeland, really…there is no way you can accurately say losing 21 starters didn’t set the team back. Starters are starters. Maybe some of them were not elite, but they were still starters.
January 17th, 2018 at 12:46 pm
will jude save the secondary???…lol
January 17th, 2018 at 12:54 pm
injuries are apart of the game…..just like the schedule you play…..every team has injuries….every team has a schedule…..NO EXCUSES!!!!!!…..
this teams failures come from poor coaching….not IRMA….not Hard Knocks…not injuries or SOS…..
#NOEXCUSESIN2018………GO BUCS!!!!
January 17th, 2018 at 1:03 pm
@813bucboi
Actually, it is a combination of things, not just the coaching. Sure, coaching played a part, and so did the schedule, the injuries and the talent.
I agree Hard Knocks had zero affect…unless it is as some sort of jinx.
January 17th, 2018 at 1:13 pm
I don’t wonder at all and I don’t want to hear about injuries. The Vikings made it to the NFC championship game with their 3rd string QB and losing Dalvin Cook early in the season. Stefon Diggs missed two games. Sendejo missed three games. Everson Griffen missed a game. They had other players miss time as well due to injuries. Every team has a similar sad story.
January 17th, 2018 at 1:17 pm
HawaiiBuc,
Very good, but I disagree with Koetter being better than Raheem. Raheem failed at management not coaching. You know Mike Williams was about that life. Raheem would not sure check that type of behavior.
January 17th, 2018 at 1:33 pm
Sorry Hawaii – Koetter is NOT better than Raheem or Lovie or Schiano, he’s just as good or WORSE. Raheem got a raw deal here, he deserved the deference Koetter is getting.
January 17th, 2018 at 1:35 pm
D-Rome – Tell ‘Em. All teams have injuries, good team with solid coaching overcome adversity. The Bucs are not good and not good at overcoming anything. The current coaching regime MAGNIFIES deficiencies instead of minimizing them.
January 17th, 2018 at 1:38 pm
bonzai
people say TEN and PHI had a weak/soft SOS…..
do you think their fan base is saying,….
” yeah we made the playoffs and won a playoff game but our SOS was weak so I aint counting this year as a success”
or
“even if we make it to the SB, it doesn’t matter because we didn’t play a tough SOS”…..
HELL NAWL…..they earned their playoff spot by beating teams that lined up in front of them…..just like the bucs lost to 11 teams that lined up in front of them….
so would you be satisfied if we played a weak SOS, made the playoffs and won a playoff game….or a tougher SOS and finish 8-8…..
screw the SOS…..on any given sunday any team can be beat……NO EXCUSES!!!!….GO BUCS!!!!
January 17th, 2018 at 1:48 pm
We are getting lost in a battle of semantics! I tried extenuating circumstance versus excuse…how about legitimate reason.
Again…these injuries are ABSOLUTELY a “legitimate reason” for at least some of our struggles. And lost in these stats is the critical factor of just who missed the games.
In our case…our franchise QB missed three and probably should have missed three others. The major piece projected for our pass rush drew rave reviews in the joint summer practice with the Jags and then missed virtually the entire season. If Noah has stayed healthy COULD that have changed things. What if he blew up…hell what if he was just good and got 8 sacks…COULD that have possibly made things easier for other DL like GMC providing our entire unit with a lift.
Conversely if VHG missed even more games would it have made a difference? Nah.
I guess at the end of the day it comes down to legitimate reasons and excuses.
The injuries obviously fall under the legitimate reason category…the moaning about having to be on HK IS an excuse.
The Bucs have legitimate reasons for their struggles…they have certainly added some lame excuse to that as well. It’s important to determine the difference before you fire coaches and players. You can address a legitimate reason…excuses are not so easy to address. What stop making excuses…that’s going to make us better…NO address the legitimate reasons.
FIX THE PASS RUSH!!! Yeah I hear you guys we need to improve the running game….I’m far more optimistic about improving the running game…the pass rush totally scares me though. I HOPE we can improve it but history makes it hard to hope for the Buc’s pass rush.
January 17th, 2018 at 1:57 pm
I know one coach living out west now who Koetter is not better than.
January 17th, 2018 at 2:15 pm
When the Bucs went 10-6 in 2010 with Rah as Head Coach. They had a bunch of rag-tagged UDFAs as starters. Then after the season , they had a lot of cap space and only signed a punter from Atlanta. The Bucs has been on a spending ever since 2011, after they fired Rah.
January 17th, 2018 at 3:09 pm
Excellent article Joe. I’ve got a theory … the players who get hurt the most seem to fall into 3 categories: (1) those who are ‘small’ for their position (like Noah Spence); (2) those with a history of injury (like Jack Smith); and (3) older players (like Ayers & McDonald). Actually that pretty much describes the entire Bucs’ team now that I think about it.
January 17th, 2018 at 3:21 pm
stpete
-vikes lost there starting QB and RB for the season…but I have a better example…dolphins lost their QB and traded their RB….still finished with a better record than the bucs(6-10)
-fitz went 2-1 in Winston’s absence…..aint like we didn’t win a game while he was out
-we had no pass rush….a healthy NS57 would’ve made 1 pass rusher….if he stayed healthy, im sure teams would’ve doubled him on obvious passing downs making our pass rush ineffective….
if we underachieve next year, the “EXCUSE” will be the rookies need time to develop and learn….or we still need more talent…..or injuries….or SOS….or whatever excuse that’s under the sun….GO BUCS!!!
January 17th, 2018 at 3:23 pm
How long can koetter ride to he developed Winston train? Not one more losing season lol stepping into top tier of wastelands means more than racking up stats in a losing season, you have to win to be relevant, if koetter and Winston can’t win together then the band needs to break up
January 17th, 2018 at 5:05 pm
it is an excuse……VHIII counts towards that factor so does Baker, Ward, Ayers, Djax, RB(Quiz?), Sweezy and probably some more ineffective others I’m missing. Half of our opening day starters played like stiffs.
Losing most of our Oline hurt us badly but that didn’t happen til the season was deemed meaningless. I’m all for excusing some of the offensive woes on Winston but a proper rushing attack could have kept our he’d above water……There’s no injury excuse to say it hurt our running game, we just flat out sucked.
Then what about our defense? You can’t make no case for injury there. Ayers Spence and J.Smith should never have been relayed upon to provide us a passrush to begin with. Anybody thinking that trio would hold up had their head up there ass. The results are what you get when you put faith in unreliable players. Aside from that the only significant injury was Kwon early on and if you can’t run your defense because of one injury to a key player your just a poor coach.
It’s all just one big fat ass excuse. We were never going to be able to run the ball with this personal and we were never going to be able to consistently stop the run nor pass with this personal either. It’s just a crybaby excuse for a weak team.
January 17th, 2018 at 5:11 pm
And we were the team that had the lax offseason to stay healthy.. how’d that work out
January 17th, 2018 at 5:23 pm
This team had a chance to turn their season around way back in Oct when we played our first divisional game at home against the Panthers. After our 5-11 finish the game looks basically meaningless but at the time it was a big and meaningful game for this team.
We didn’t have any key players out for that game. What happened was that we got physically dominated. We played with no intensity and the effort was very questionable. We looked unprepared and were caught missing several assignments. After the first quater the Panthers passrush started putting heat on our QB and no adjustment was made as we kept calling long developing passing plays and simply allowed the Panthers passrush to tee of on us and force Winston into multiple mistakes.
It was one of the most pathetic games from coaching to players.
We didn’t show up in the big games and we didn’t show up in the little games. We played OK in the final three games and that was when we had more backups in the lineup then any other point of the year.
Schedules injury’s…..Get real…….Why dont you go rewatch the game in New Orleans and tell me how that game is excusable?
January 17th, 2018 at 6:23 pm
@JimmyJack … “just a crybaby excuse for a weak team.” By George JimmyJack, I think you’ve got it. Personally I think a lot of our ‘weakness’ as a team is lack of adequate L-E-A-D-E-R-S-H-I-P at critical points. Who’s the leader of our OLine for instance? I’d say that Mankins filled that role beautifully when D. Smith & Marpet came onboard, but who is it now? You know, the one everyone looks to for inspiration & expertise (and who’s not hesitant to kick butts when needed). Same question with the DLine & with our Secondary … who do those position groups look to for leadership and inspiration at critical junctures? Like when the game is on the line.
Folks keep pointing to Jameis & Kwon as being our ‘leaders’ on the field, and to a certain degree they are. But compare the leadership we’ve seen out of them to what Drew Brees provides to the Saints, or what Luke Kuechly provides to the Panthers. The mental toughness that certain T-E-A-M-S are renowned for just seems to be lacking in our Bucs. Perhaps that’s why the physical toughness also seems to be lacking so often too.
January 17th, 2018 at 6:38 pm
Defense. I defiantly agree with you about leadership. Maybe Marpet needs to be our leader though he had his hands full learning a new position. I think they brought Seazy in for that role but that may have been a misevaluation.
I also think they brought Ayers in for that role but who is going to listen to a guy that is basically a stiff on the field.
I think Winston needs to step up a little more this year. I wouldn’t mind seeing him go off on his Oline once in a while…….They really let him down in many games this year, they deserve it……..I also think coaching would go a long ways. We sure could use a cram it down your throat mentality once in a while. O-lineman feed off of that. We get too pass happy too much at the start of games. Get these guys hungry to fight for one yard. Why can’t we run up the gut for 3rd and one? Quite trying this fancy crap running sweeps and calling bootlegs that don’t work anyways……Cram it down their damn throats. If it don’t work keep working on it til these guys get it…….Get this big ass Steve T. Dude on the field if you have to and take out Dotson…..Let GMC play TE for third and 1.
We haven’t been able to get 3rd and 1 since Gruden left and if this team want to win with offense 3rd and 1 needs to be part of it……not only are they critical plays but the offensive line gains confidence from it. And this isn’t coming from me. This is what I have learned from listening to brodacsters(ex players) who know what the heck they are talking about.
Dirk said he want a badass football team. All I see is a pile of soft as football players, except a few.
January 17th, 2018 at 9:31 pm
Well actually there was a ton of injuries, and yes that can be an excuse depending on who got injured. For example the Packers, they lost Rodgers, that is a legitimate excuse for having a poor season. The issue with the Bucs is they lost a bunch of guys AND they had no depth. On defense in particular, contrary to Joe saying corner was the deepest position on the team last August, I very very very very very very very very very strongly disagreed with that, and in fact said it was the weakest most salary position on the team – and it was. There was no depth on the D-line, there was no one even proven at S regardless of the depth, and even at LB the Bucs were expecting a rookie coming off an ACL to start from day 1, and while Beckwith did well, it was still a position with no depth once you get past the starting three. Depth is everything and in 2016 this went well on the defense, but they were always just one injury away from completely collapse.