More Defensive Ineptitude
October 12th, 2018
The hits keep on coming.
The Bucs pass rush is pretty sorry outside of new defensive ends Jason Pierre-Paul and Vinny Curry. Bucs fans know this.
But when it comes to blitzing, Bucs defenders are starting to look like their blitz schemes are being devised by football thinktank known as Howard, Fine and Howard.
Now Joe doesn’t put much stock in quarterback ratings but they can provide a ballpark idea of what is going on. And Joe is guessing from the Twitter of Patriots beat writer Ben Volin that a quarterback rating of 150 is near-perfect (why can’t a perfect rating be simple like 100 percent?).
So if that is the case, per Volin, NFL quarterbacks are begging Bucs defensive coordinator Mike Smith to blitz.
Look at how bad the Bucs have been at blitzing this year. Quarterbacks have a near-perfect passer rating against it pic.twitter.com/asdTJVIqWp
— Ben Volin (@BenVolin) October 12, 2018
Does anyone have one ounce of hope that Smith can somehow slow down Matty Ice on the turf of the Dixie Chicks’ cage in Atlanta Sunday? Based on what, because the Bucs white uniforms look better than the road unis?
Every way you slice it, this defense is bad. And to think just how gruesome it would have been had Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht not beefed it up in the offseason?
October 12th, 2018 at 5:10 am
@Joe … “Does anyone have one ounce of hope that Smith can somehow slow down Matty Ice on the turf of the Dixie Chicks’ cage in Atlanta Sunday? ” LMAO Joe. Bucs’ defense WILL play much better Sunday now that Allen & Vea are healthy. I just keep hoping that Smitty goes with a young Secondary and turns them loose.
@Joe … :And to think just how gruesome it would have been had Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht not beefed it up in the offseason?” If only the world were as simplistic as you make it out to be. (Jason must be serving you up unlimited craft beers Joe; that’s the only explanation I can come up with for you continually letting him off the hook for some of his disastrous team-structuring decisions).
October 12th, 2018 at 6:07 am
This will be smiths last game as coach if falcons put up 30
2 weeks to prepare and no real injuries on dline so no more excuses . Koetter won’t want to do anything but licht has too step in cause he will be fired too …
The table Is set. Jamies coming back to perfect scenario .
Time to nut up or shut up !
October 12th, 2018 at 6:09 am
^^^
No real injuries on defense (beckwith and unrein and Hargreaves excluded)
October 12th, 2018 at 6:10 am
Curly was the best. Gotta love the stooges
October 12th, 2018 at 6:19 am
They only blitz 14% of the time so that’s not a lot to go by compared to the average that’s around 24%.
October 12th, 2018 at 6:24 am
Remember your piece Joe before the Bears game about how Koetter said the team had great practices? I saw trouble a mile away with that comment. Normally, great practices are a positive thing, but this is the Bucs we’re talking about. We saw what a week of great practices did for them, offense included.
Point being, we have no reason to believe this defense will show up, and with good reason. So maybe we’ll have an opposite result (as in: great practices equaled getting thoroughly destroyed) and the defense will put together a solid game. Wishful thinking…
October 12th, 2018 at 6:27 am
This is very depressing….hearing about our defense….it’s bad enough to watch it every Sunday, but to read about it and view it all week is cruel. Please, please, please just let us have at least one game where we shine so we can have a week of peace and hope.
October 12th, 2018 at 6:28 am
Change things up ,let the LB’s be more instinctive and delay the blitz at times .
They have to find lanes to QB that opposing offenses don’t expect. Bring corners and safeties once in a while. Of all the QB’s in the league, Smitty has to use his
familiarity with Matty Ice to thaw him out and get him off his spot.
October 12th, 2018 at 6:47 am
Hmmm…no stories yet on how inept the Fowlclowns OL is that the Bucs DL will have a field day?
October 12th, 2018 at 7:10 am
I’m telling you they don’t know how. They prob don’t practice it and only utilize 3 different blitzes. So predictable even when they do blitz. Coordinators are prob joking about characteristics of our defense to one another. It’s a running joke I’m sure….It’s pathetic.
October 12th, 2018 at 7:41 am
mike smith gives good podium…that’s why he is still here…he is cool, calm and collected up there – like he has it all under control…and he speaks from a perspective as if he is kind of a dual head coach along with koetter…what would really be cool is when he’s about half way thru spewing his nonsense on the media, jenna laine rushes up to the podium and snuffs him in the head…
#JennaWouldBeAyeHero
#GeraldMccoyWouldIdolizeBatmanAndJenna
October 12th, 2018 at 7:43 am
#SmittyIsStraightPunkingTheCityOfTampaWithPodiumShenannigans
October 12th, 2018 at 7:44 am
When you have Kwon Alexander and Lavonte David in our front four and you can’t Blitz? That’s freaking pathetic pathetic not even the word there is no word the only thing that continues to come to mind is fire Mike Smith he sucks
October 12th, 2018 at 7:45 am
#IfWeLoseBadSundayLichtIntervenes
October 12th, 2018 at 7:50 am
@BUcEmUp :
any real bucs fan can remember how lavonte used to really get to the qb…he was almost like a sack specialist for a few years there…then poof…mr. podium came in and “””installed””” this dung azz doo!
October 12th, 2018 at 7:52 am
I’ll watch more closely this week, but we seem to blitz while playing off-coverage. I can see doing that on 3rd and 10, but I think that’s what we do on every blitz..3rd and 3…blitz…off-coverage. 1st DOWN!
I wouldn’t mind this defense – if they at least made teams take their time and dink /dunk their way down field. Play the percentages game – maybe you get a turnover, penalty, force a field goal here and there…but we don’t do that..teams dink and dunk but its a 20 yard play. If teams just go into their 2 min offense they’ll score 40 points. Smitty gets scared and goes into our cover 2 or cover 3 scheme. When teams have to get points they get them against us. It’s coming soon, but teams will realize to stop messing around and go up tempo and throw it.
Our best chance of winning is to play ball control on offense. Make in-game decisions that reflect’s the challenges you have with your defense. Meaning, we should barely punt on 4th down on the plus side of the 50…Understand that your O will need to win the game and that your D will lose it for you.
Go Bucs!
October 12th, 2018 at 8:12 am
technically it’s not “more defensive ineptitude”. it’s “more details on ongoing defensive ineptitude”. i’m not entirely certain more ineptitude is possible. then again, i watched a Lovie Smith defense for 2 years
October 12th, 2018 at 8:24 am
25 attempts is too small of a sample size to make any real conclusions.
October 12th, 2018 at 8:42 am
By that chart Chicago is a terrible defense as well, and we all know that they might be the best in the league.
October 12th, 2018 at 11:39 am
Chicago, because they have KMack now, are comfortable only rushing their front four. But notice where Pitt is on that list. They blitzed or gave the appearance of blitzing on nearly every play. They disguised it so well that you didn’t know which, besides the front 3, were going to pass rush. Atlanta’s O-line has been struggling so maybe our front 4 will be enough, but if they can’t get there then Matt Ryan will pick us apart given time.
October 12th, 2018 at 12:10 pm
I chuckle at the talking heads that say you never want to change a coordinator mid-season. It is just stupid in our case, what are we gonna do become the 33rd rank defense in the league? Right now we a lapping the field in defensive ineptitude. At least it will show the players that we (management) will not put up with this either on the field by the players or on the sidelines (or press box in this case) by the coaches. We would have had 2 weeks to get a basic system installed. This is akin to rushing to line, wasting 38 seconds before calling timeout in the final minute when you are losing if Smith gets fired after this week. If we win and defense plays great, I still have zero faith in this guy, see for example the last 3 games of 2016 after our 5 game win streak put us right dead in the middle of the playoff race. And don’t come at me with we won the final game. We played like crap, Panthers weren’t playing for anything, we still had an outside chance at a playoff spot.
October 12th, 2018 at 1:02 pm
Bucs will win against the Birds Sunday. I think our defensive front 4 has its best day of the season here. Secondary will struggle as usual though, close game but we pull it out..Barely. The following week though, I see Baker Mayfield lighting us up bigtime as we return to our…DEFENSELESS ways.
October 12th, 2018 at 1:13 pm
Mike Johnson
I’m more worried about the Brownies D
They have built a really good unit there….
October 12th, 2018 at 1:37 pm
And Greg Williams knows how to coach defense. We will def struggle to move the ball more against the browns.
October 12th, 2018 at 7:58 pm
Greg Williams is known for the blitz with his hybrid front seven scheme. Jameis has to prove he can beat good defenses and the Brown’s have put together a Greg Williams special.
October 12th, 2018 at 8:05 pm
But c’mon, if we can’t beat Cleveland North here in Cleveland South’s home turf, then we are the sorriest team ever.