Downhill From Here
October 8th, 2018
CBS analyst believes Bucs cannot recover from trainwreck of a defense.
When Ryan Wilson of CBS Sports watched the Bucs-Bears game a week ago, he was appalled and outraged at the Bucs defense as any sober fan would be.
Or any drunk fan.
And to Wilson, speaking on the “Pick Six” podcast, what we saw from the Bucs on offense the first two weeks of the season was a mirage and the norm will be more like watching teams boatrace the Bucs defense into tap outs.
“The Bucs are godawful on defense and they don’t show any signs of changing,” Wilson said. “Ryan Fitzypatrick made Dirk Koetter’s job a lot easier. You bench him and you roll with Jameis Winston and there’s no reason to look back now.
“The fun ride is over for the Bucs starting 2-0 and now are 2-2. I don’t think you will see Ryan Fitzpatrick dressing up as DeSean Jackson any time soon.”
Joe has no idea how the Bucs are supposed to fix the defense, even with the luxury of a bye week. It’s not like they can go out and trade for a couple of guys and build a defense around new additions a month into the season.
The Bucs better just pray that Jason Pierre-Paul continues to hound quarterbacks at a franchise-record setting pace. That’s the only hope Joe has for this defense to do anything under this defensive coordinator.
October 8th, 2018 at 5:45 am
Joe says the Bucs better hope JPP continues to hound Quarterbacks….. what the hell about the biggest fraud in all of football?? My God GMC gets more leeway than anyone else in football! When will the craziness and the overhyping of this fraud end??
October 8th, 2018 at 5:47 am
All of those who have followed my posts over the years know that I am very optimistic….look for the positive…..and supportive of players and coaches. Although I will certainly root for him to succeed, I have lost all respect for Mike Smith’s abilities.
Koetter’s position of “what good would it do to fire him, what would you do then” is troubling.
Any manager, no matter what the business would terminate or neuter an incompetent employee because it sends a message to all employees that failure is not an option.
If there is not a capable coach on the Bucs to take Mike Smith’s place…..then that is more evidence of his incompetence and unfortunately, Koetter’s.
October 8th, 2018 at 6:35 am
Smith has always been a joke coaching defense. He couldn’t save his own job when Koetter had a top flight offense in atlanta
October 8th, 2018 at 6:36 am
Hey! At least we didn’t get curb stomped yesterday! Go Bucs!
October 8th, 2018 at 6:41 am
Someone should ask Koetter “What good would it do to RETAIN him”???? To many fans that was the same as “I am in over my head” and this might be taken as “I quit” to his team. My fear is that a week from now Joe will be talking about how a bad ATL team somehow managed to get to 2-4 and I do not think the final score would matter at all whether it is another 48-10 loss or a loss where the Bucs blow a 17 point 4th quarter lead to lose or if it is a 38-35 loss in OT, no moral victories when you lose to a 1-4 team…. Koetter, IMHO, has been put in a situation where his seat becomes one of the hottest in the NFL with a loss since he basically gave Smith a vote of confidence by not doing a anything during the bye week. Surprise me Bucs, and win next Sunday!
October 8th, 2018 at 6:58 am
A lot of things wrong with this defense. Smitty was outcoached in
Chicago. As the Chicago coach said ,he knew how We were going
to defend them. So they had multiple receivers in the same zone to give rookie DB’s too many people to cover at once leaving an open man.
But if you watch other good teams ,they have a cohesive unit that works together.
We do not have that level of experience or talent. Jason Licht has not done a good job building this defense. No coach should should be forced to start 3 rookie DB’s, a hobbled aging corner, and other players whose lack of experience is a liability.
You can’t keep keep making the same mistake over and again. Free agent signings that are not good enough or available enough have been a consistent issue with this defense. Bucs won’t get to the next level until Licht stops repeating the same mistakes. Each year we are trying to fix mistakes of the
previous year, preventing us from moving on to the next problem. Better to sign one quality free agent like JPP than three mediocre ones. Licht has tried
to fix our problems by signing too many second and third tier free agents.
October 8th, 2018 at 7:39 am
It is the PLAYCALLING! Change the play caller. As someone within the past 2 years famously said, WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO LOSE?
October 8th, 2018 at 8:08 am
Who the hell is Ryan Wilson? Never heard of him.
October 8th, 2018 at 8:44 am
I hated the reason Mike Smith got his big time extension. This team always shows us exactly who they are during the season, they used to just tap out but I hate this rally at the end of the season to try and keep a guys job instead of rallies to make the playoffs. Fans deserve that effort all year long. I agree with this, nothing will change, changes were made in the off-season so what do you do mid season besides go back to some other stupid idea that didn’t work either. Sacks are 1-2 plays per game out of like 60 snaps which only help if they come at the end of close games
The offense is one of the top 5 talents in the nfl but it’s over for dirk now that teams know they can’t run the ball. We thought analysts didn’t know barber because they didn’t watch us play no it’s because he won’t be a reason we win games. Like his 100 yard game in Green Bay it won’t matter with this defwnsw
October 8th, 2018 at 8:48 am
Remember when JW3 “led” the Bucs to a 5 game winning streak in 2016?
Five game winning streak in 2016? Yep, they won the turnover battle in every game, and the “trainwreck” defense had 14 takeaways during that five game streak.
Oh, and when Fitzpatrick started those three games last year, the Bucs won the turnover battle every game, and went 2-1 in the process.
For the last three years plus four games:
Win the TO battle: 16-4
Tie the TO battle: 2-6
Lose the TO battle: 4-20
More than 3 TOs: 1-14
tickrdr
October 8th, 2018 at 9:16 am
Well said TBBF. And to me, where Koetter failed is in recognizing Mike Smith’s incompetency during the off season. That is part of being a manager and a leader, is that you are responsible for those under your command. And Koetter, with his misplaced loyalty to his friend, deserves all that is coming to him.
October 8th, 2018 at 9:29 am
Everytime I hear”but we started 3 rookies in the secondary” I’m reminded we had a veteran corner in for a workout a few weeks ago. Breeland who is a servicable veteran corner was not signed because the team must have figured they were better off with the rookies. So that once again falls on the coaches. The only totally unrealistic excuse for the coaches is that Isaiah Johnson’s head was still ringing from hitting the wall Monday night and he shouldn’t have played with double vision, that one they could have blamed on the training staff.
October 8th, 2018 at 10:17 am
I hate to say it, but I still think we’re two maybe three drafts away from being a solid team. That’s if, IF the Bucs refuse to sign any quality secondary FACsecondary players, and if the QB situation doesn’t resolve itself for the better. Should be an interesting month.
October 8th, 2018 at 10:20 am
Dumpster diving for veteran leadership during the season is a short term fix.Licht should have had more players to get in developement before Hargreaves was
drafted. He needs to be a couple of steps ahead instead of counting on Grimes
whose play and availability were slipping last year.
October 8th, 2018 at 12:08 pm
I have hated Mike Smith’s defensive scheme since day one with the zone package that looks like the other team is on their 20 yard line with three seconds left. But we also were missing a gigantic piece of the secondary puzzle with Jordan Whitehead not playing. Surely do wish Conte could’ve been playing there instead of Isaiah Johnson who looked like he had his head on top of the baseball bat spinning around until he fell over every play. Still not an excuse for having by far the worst passing defense in the league.
Ronde=CBs coach+Tiki=RBs coach 2019.