The Secret Weapon
June 27th, 2019
Overlooked.
If this is the mentality of the NFL, Joe believes the Bucs have a secret weapon.
Back in the 1980s, Hall of Fame manager Whitey Herzog built the team of the decade on speed, defense and pitching. And on a lot of wise moves, including one he used often.
Herzog used to boast of a guy he called “The Secret Weapon,” José Oquendo, a respectable hitter but a very good infielder and very fast. Herzog tagged him with the name “The Secret Weapon” because Oquendo quite literally played every position. Yes, every outfield position, every infield position (including catcher) and once even pitched in relief.
Oquendo was quite literally a baseball version of a Swiss Army knife. A true plug-and-play guy.
Joe was reminded of Oquendo and his nickname by reading a preview of the NFC South by Jonathan Jones of theMMQB.com. Jones broke down the division and, unlike many, he believes the Bucs receiving corps isn’t that good outside of Mike Evans.
Mike Evans is one of the most underrated receivers in the league, and I think O.J. Howard can take off in Year 2. But a group that loses DeSean Jackson and Adam Humphries and adds Breshad Perriman is markedly worse.
(Yes, Joe is aware O.J. Howard is in Year 3.)
Notice a name missing in the excerpt above? Yeah, that would be Chris Godwin. And Joe strongly believes the Bucs are better off without malcontent wide receiver DeSean Jackson. This Jackson has people hoodwinked. Maybe it’s the PlayStation Effect? If a guy dominates on “Madden,” then by God he has to be good in real football, right… right?
Last year, Godwin put up better numbers and played in more games than Jackson, that’s right! The only area in which Jackson bested Godwin is yards-per-catch. Godwin had more catches for more yards and more touchdowns playing in more games.
Godwin appears to be a secret in many NFL circles. And Joe is OK with that. Let others find out the hard way this guy has skills, not to mention he’s a team-first kind of dude.
Is Godwin a secret? Seems so. He’s the Bucs’ Secret Weapon.
June 27th, 2019 at 12:14 pm
Oh yes this dude is a secret weapon. I mean nobody knows who Godwin is outside of Tampa except for extreme football fans.
Take him in round 5ish of fantasy. You’ll be very happy you did.
I’m expecting 1200 yards 12 tds from this guy.
June 27th, 2019 at 12:14 pm
IMO there is ZERO doubt that the WR corps got better when we got rid of DJax.
Let people sleep on the Bucs WRs if they want to.
June 27th, 2019 at 12:17 pm
If BA had any guts he’d switch VH3 to WR. He could be our Tyreek Hill. Let’s be honest he’s just going to get muscled out for the ball anyway.
I’d use his hands and speed on offense and punt return but wtfdik. btw that’s a total madden move. Lol
June 27th, 2019 at 12:18 pm
Of coarse he is the “Buc’s secret weapon” !!!!!! The problem is that the qb is just as likely to shoot himself or teams as he is as using the “secret weapon”!!!!!!!!! Hopefully they let the “secret weapon” practice with the linebackers so that he can limit yards after turnovers!!!!!! Which should now be a stat for the NFL just for the fold like a lawn chair qb!!!!!!!!!!! The YAT or also know as the j-miss stat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2019 will reveal answers to the sheep, that the “real” fans already know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GO Bucs!!!!!!!!!!!!!
June 27th, 2019 at 12:18 pm
dirk and GMC have you hoodwinked joe….they allowed all the BS with djax and baker to happen….
regarding CG, he’s a great asset to the team….i see him doing big things this year….something like what juju did for the steelers….
GO BUCS!!!!
June 27th, 2019 at 12:22 pm
842 receiving yards the guy shouldn’t be based on the fact the hump got a fat contact based on 816 yard season, just shows you people who call themselves analysts and writers dont actually watch games or look at stats for that matter
June 27th, 2019 at 12:25 pm
Godwin is not a secret weapon to Buc fans. He is nipping at the heels of being this teams best receiver.
June 27th, 2019 at 12:31 pm
Joe – I think you may be right on this one. Good call.
June 27th, 2019 at 12:31 pm
“Godwin appears to be a secret in many NFL circles.”
Not a chance. Guaranteed there is already loads of video from last year already loaded up by a host of NFL teams and ready to use. The Bucs best plan would be to use him in ways not done before. With an all new coaching staff, that could be slight advatange for the Bucs early on in the season. This is more likely Jonathon Jones doing his own bad work.
June 27th, 2019 at 12:41 pm
Godwin was a 3rd round steal with 1st round talent.
Bucs will be better than just fine at receiver despite losing DJax and Humphries.
Because WR is still the deepest position on this team.
Evans and Godwin is a hell of a 1-2 punch. (Top 5 duo in the league IMO)
Perriman adds legit 4.3 speed and some experience.
Justin Watson is ready to bust out whenever he gets a legit chance to play in real games.
Bobo Wilson has NFL talent with some speed and a couple years of experience now.
Rookie Scotty Miller is super fast and has looked very good to coaches eyes thus far.
Rookie UDFA Spencer Schnell has turned some heads….
Add OJ Howard and Cam Brate to the mix – and the Bucs have one of (if not THE) best group of receiving options in the whole league…
June 27th, 2019 at 12:48 pm
great article Joe
June 27th, 2019 at 1:24 pm
NFL talking heads simply saying words to fill empty space. That’s all they usually ever do. They do no research, they think OJ is in year 2, Godwin doesn’t exist, Brate isn’t on the roster, they just want to do as little work (research) as possible and get paid for it.
FYI, snap counts from last year, even before Jackson was hurt showed Humphries as 2nd most, and Godwin 3rd.
June 27th, 2019 at 1:29 pm
DB55 Says:
June 27th, 2019 at 12:17 pm
If BA had any guts he’d switch VH3 to WR. He could be our Tyreek Hill. Let’s be honest he’s just going to get muscled out for the ball anyway.
I’d use his hands and speed on offense …
_______
And let me stop you right there. You do know that Hargreaves can’t run, right? I mean he’s the perfect player for John McKay to describe. He’s small but he makes up for it by being slow with bad technique. Offense? Dude is barely NFL quality on defense.
June 27th, 2019 at 1:30 pm
People completely sleeping on Perriman as well. Last four games of the season dude was averaging 30+ yards per catch and had 9 catches for 2 TD’s on 12 targets.
June 27th, 2019 at 1:38 pm
Bucs have not had a respectable or respected player or weapon since sapp left the building
June 27th, 2019 at 1:42 pm
The panthers know about Godwin. He has field day against the panthers. Honestly I don’t listen to national media when it comes to bucs other than C. Simms. None of them watches bucs games, so they really don’t know what they are talking about. IMO
June 27th, 2019 at 1:44 pm
Godwin’s Rose Bowl performance against USC alone, should have gotten him picked in the second round.
The most impressive thing w/ Godwin last year to me was the ability to bounce back from the little rough patch he had for a few games consecutively. That showed a lot and bodes well for the future that he was able to overcome that…and to do it on a losing team that wasn’t going anywhere fast.
June 27th, 2019 at 1:47 pm
JGhoti86,
He absolutely abused 1st round pick Adoree Jackson and the USC secondary in that game. Then he blew up the Combine. I saw him as a mid 2nd rounder as his floor, late 1st as his ceiling. Him lasting into the 3rd was a huge surprise to me
June 27th, 2019 at 1:48 pm
Perriman will outperform Djax…….and no Djax means more Godwin….that is a huge win.
i hope we can replace Humphries with a combination of Godwin, Miller & Watson.
June 27th, 2019 at 2:04 pm
If Jameis was accurate like the elite quarterbacks in the NFL Evans , desean and Godwin would all have had 1000 yards last year… oh and also if he didn’t miss 3 games
June 27th, 2019 at 2:05 pm
I’m meaning both Godwin and desean not just evans
June 27th, 2019 at 2:07 pm
I have nothing but disdain for these so called “analysts.”
June 27th, 2019 at 3:10 pm
Don’t forget Justin Watson too.
June 27th, 2019 at 3:13 pm
Hahahahahaha. Howard could take off in year two.
NFC South teams know what Godwin is about coming into his third year. Apparently this idiot doesn’t.
Justin Watson is going to be the under the radar, secret weapon that’s going to bust through this year.
June 27th, 2019 at 3:29 pm
Godwin is a fantastic #2, but he has one big problem, he was awful in games with rain where he couldn’t wear gloves. I hope he’s spending this entire offseason catching the ball without gloves, because you can make the case (but not a good case) that he cost the team the game in Baltimore with all his drops.
But it can be overcome. Look at Evans and that awful game he had against the Giants in the rain where he dropped everything (yet still had like 200 yards somehow) – he seemingly put in the effort to correct that and we really haven’t talked about drops with Evans in a while.
June 27th, 2019 at 3:48 pm
Winston will overthrow him often.
June 27th, 2019 at 4:24 pm
Why is it in a article about a young outstanding player on this team, that says nothing about the QB, do some feel it is necessary to rip the starting QB for no apparent reason? I mean are these people obsessed? Are they in love? Do they really want to create more agruments? Are they really the Joe’s trying to drum up hate amongst fans by pretending to be clueless fans? Who knows but frankly I’m tired of seeing our fan base divided by this clear lack of understanding in regards to the game of football. Folks we are losing baseball, you will have time, so please learn the game and the history of the game and stop using headlines off of ESPN as your entire knowledge base so you actually sound intelligent.
June 27th, 2019 at 4:29 pm
Man, enjoy visiting this site but it’s seems like it just gets more and more negative. I get it Joe you think the team sucks and practically everyone on it sucks too. The podcast too, you guys are great but it’s getting old.
June 27th, 2019 at 4:34 pm
Godwin is Antonio Brown 2.0. I cant wait to see how Arians lines these guys up to confuse defenses. Finally some real coaching!!!!!!
June 27th, 2019 at 4:45 pm
Believe me Joe, Godwin is no secret to any D.C. worth his salt. They watch more film then any of us, and the film don’t lie. Godwin is a beast.
June 27th, 2019 at 5:47 pm
DJax was named one of the Top-10 additions in the NFL this offseason.
And supposedly he’s perfectly in sync with Carson Wentz already.
Leave DJax alone, Joe.
I wish he would’ve worked out well here, but don’t act like it was his fault that Jameis couldn’t hit him in stride…
Anyway, I do like our team better now without DJax and with our new additions.
June 27th, 2019 at 5:47 pm
Joe: great article.
June 27th, 2019 at 6:15 pm
I think Scotty Miller could be another steal and would be even more of a secret weapon. He won’t be a major contributer as WR but he can shock an opponent or two by making the splash play out of nowhere at a critical moment in those games. Those two games in turn could be a difference between 9-7 vs 7-9 for our season. Who knows.
This is no prediction on my part. I do hope he catches on as a special teams player or maybe a kick returner or anything.
__________
Go Bucs!!!
June 27th, 2019 at 7:37 pm
Godwin will be on Fire this year. Followed him at Penn State. There is absolutely no quit in this guy! He will run his routes and fight for everything within reach. The rest of the league will know who Chris Godwin is!
June 27th, 2019 at 11:22 pm
Thanks guys!
June 28th, 2019 at 6:55 am
Yeah Godwin has tremendous upside , but did you really take a FREAKING KICKER in the 5th Round when Hunter Renfrow ( Adam Humphries clone} was available? There is no correlation between having a good kicker and making the playoffs. The NFL is success formula is predicated on 2 things , scoring TD’s and stopping the opponent from scoring TD’s , neither of which does a kicker have any involvement.
Jason the LIGHT BRAIN is not qualified to be a GM – PERIOD.
June 28th, 2019 at 9:42 am
DJax is a douche, but quit kidding yourselves in to thinking he isn’t any good. He had zero chemistry with Never famous Jameis, but to sit there and say he isn’t talented is ignorant sounding. People weren’t ranting about his lack of talent while Fitz was QB and he was hauling in TDs every 5 minutes.
Fairweather fans if ever there were some. Truly pathetic.