Bucs Win 56-23!
August 25th, 2019
“We killed it, Mike.”
A little perspective here for the freakout crowd and really every Bucs fan.
The mythical game score in the headline here has a distinct meaning.
It’s the combined first-half score of the Buccaneers against their 2018 preseason opponents. Tampa Bay, through those six quarters of football, outscored the Dolphins, Titans and Lions 56-23. That’s quite a pounding.
Peyton Barber even had 15 carries for a whopping 87 yards in those games!
What did it all mean? Joe will let fans answer that for themselves.
This year, the Bucs have trailed at halftime of every preseason game, including getting shut out by the Browns on Friday. Anyone think the Bucs are worse this year than they were last year?
There are positives and negatives with every team in late August. The key — and the fun — is trying to make sense out of it without getting too influenced by what’s happened to date in phony August games.
The Bucs secondary looks sharp. What do they look like when offensive coordinators are really trying to exploit their inexperience?
The Bucs offensive line just crapped themselves Friday and the running game looks weak. Barber and Ronald Jones combined for 59 yards on 18 carries, about 3.3 yards per carry. But that can all turn around in a hurry when the Bucs commit to winning and not just getting work.
We’re just under two weeks remaining for speculation and predictions. Enjoy it. Dread it. Whatever. Just don’t get yourself too crazy.
August 25th, 2019 at 10:21 pm
[Wrong. — Joe]
August 25th, 2019 at 11:02 pm
Excited for the Bucs season and also to track America’s HOF QB, the Beard.
If vea and lvd come back for opener and all our guys stay healthy, we can beat anyone. If JPP surprises the world and is back in October, we may just crack the playoffs.
August 25th, 2019 at 11:11 pm
Until September 8, we can all dream. When the ammo goes live, all bets are off.
August 25th, 2019 at 11:15 pm
Won’t take much for fans to turn on them.
August 25th, 2019 at 11:36 pm
The OL looks worse, the RBs are worse, and the depth at QB is worse. Did I mention Humphries and D-Jax are gone, too? Also, we have a new offensive system that will take the players some getting used to.
This offense will produce between 70% to 90% what last year’s offense produced, and that is IF neither Winston, Evans, and another OL are not lost to injury.
The defense SHOULD be better, simply because of coaching & scheme, but it will only take a few games in for teams to adjust and start figuring out how to attack our weaknesses on defense. We still lack star power at virtually every position on defense.
August 25th, 2019 at 11:38 pm
Jeremy McNichols on the other hand supposedly looks sharp for the Titans and has become a fan favorite during pre-season from what I heard.
August 25th, 2019 at 11:47 pm
In the season the Browns went 0-16, they were undefeated in preseason.
August 26th, 2019 at 12:58 am
I look forward to the season, I always hope Jameis plays well. I look forward to watching our defense as I believe they will be better. I am ok with getting a new QB next year, we are salary capped anyway. Until Drew Brees gets hurt or retires we really don’t stand alot of chance. Hoping Cam Newton gets even more hurt–honest truth here. Hoping the o-line of the Falcons doesn’t work out and Matt Ryan gets multiple sacks every game for all 16 games. I love watching Cam Newton get sacked–I like that very much! Truthfully Dalvincookrules is right-read his post. Still fun to watch. I like the Chiefs team but they don’t have a website like this so I feel less connected.
One more thing, I live in Az and hate the Cardinals so they should be fun to watch.
August 26th, 2019 at 4:59 am
Still trying to figure out what the relevance is between preseason scoring & wins and regular season scoring & wins. Nope, still can’t see it. Although we did start off fast last year with 2 wins to open the season, by a combined score of 75-61 against 2 playoff teams, one the SB Champion. I guess that means we should’ve gone 16-0?
Nah, stuff happens. That same Bucs offense that scored 75 pts in those first 2 games (37.5 PPG) against 2 Top-16 defenses went on to score 321 pts in the remaining 14 games (22.9 PPG) enroute to a 5-11 record. And that same Bucs defense that gave up 61 pts (30.5 PPG) against 2 very good offenses went on to give 403 pts (28.8 PPG) in the remaining 14 games. Hmmm, yup last year’s defense pretty consistently stunk it up. Thus the new DC & drastic personnel turnover? Whodathunkit.
August 26th, 2019 at 5:52 am
There’s no correlation, and we better hope it stays that way. The starting offense did not look sharp, including the QB, in the supposed “dress rehearsal”. On the other hand, the defense looked improved.
It’s already been talked about but I just watched the replay last night. Jameis’ decision-making has to be better. Looks to me like he’s still struggling with the deep ball too. At least 2 of those sacks were on him, holding on to the ball too long. AND, if we don’t get some quick-passing plays, he’s going to get killed behind this o-line!
Dotson and Cappa were OWNED by the Browns. I mean dude, Dotson looked awful against a speed-rusher. That is a real problem!
Stewart and Whitehead were all over the field and the d-line with Suh, looked pretty formidable.
The fact that we’re down at the half NEEDS to change.
August 26th, 2019 at 6:05 am
Bad play caller..Leftwhich
August 26th, 2019 at 6:41 am
@DalvinCook
I’m willing to bet your lunch money you are wrong.
Maybe, Maybe 90℅ of Passing yds, but 70℅ of rushing would be 1066 yds. 90℅ would be 1300.
That’s laughable for a team that ranked almost last in rushing.
I’ve seen much better run blocking from this team.
Plus you WON’T see useless dive plays over and over again just to keep the defense honest like Ko Etter and Monken did.
Deasean is waaaaay ¥ than Godwin, so there’s that.
August 26th, 2019 at 7:04 am
I’m glad to see the defense playing better. If that continues we may have a chance.
August 26th, 2019 at 7:34 am
“What does it all mean?” Not a dammmm thing.
August 26th, 2019 at 7:46 am
But zero points in the first half last week in which the starters played the entire half. Even after the Browns sat many of their starting defensive players after the first couple of drives.
August 26th, 2019 at 8:26 am
The O line was bad last year, and we didn’t add any better talent in the off season. Our starting back is the same UDFA Barber, and we can only hope Jones plays better this year then last. Dare is still here, and we replaced Quizz, with Ellington, who was out of football last year. So why should we expect better results? The first half Friday looked a lot like last year. No run game, Dotson, and Cappa getting destroyed, Jameis running for his life.
August 26th, 2019 at 9:48 am
Mostly agree with you there H O D A D. We didn’t add any better talent to the Oline but I’m hoping with better coaching game planning an a better scheme our offense will be better balanced than just having the best passing offense. We really need to upgrade both the Dline an Oline badly. It starts in the trenches an our trenches smell pretty bad lol
August 26th, 2019 at 9:58 am
The people saying that it’s meaningless and it doesn’t matter are only fooling themselves. Sure, win/loss and scores don’t matter but we all are seeing things on the field that are cause for concern. Fans can whistle past the graveyard all they want but there are most definitely areas of concern.
6-10