Bucs Beating Bucs
October 17th, 2019
“Erin, we commit too many dumb penalties.”
This seems to be an irritant and it also seems to be getting under the skin of Bucco Bruce Arians.
The Bucs coach has a saying about dumb play. “Bucs beating Bucs.” Now the cynics would quickly pipe up that is why they dream of the day America’s Quarterback, Pro Bowler Jameis Winston, is gone from the team.
Well, Jameis has a lot of company as far as players making dumb plays.
Go ahead and look at the top five teams in penalties. The Bucs are among them. No team in that group has a winning record.
Coincidence that most teams that commit a lot of penalties have putrid records? Unlikely.
Whether it is holding an illegal block to the back, illegal forward procedure, the ever-popular encroachment, defensive holding, you name it. At the worst of times those things pop up. You can almost bank on it.
It was bad under former Bucs coach Dirk Koetter and hasn’t yet vanished under Arians. In fact, when Arians’ press conference Monday was ending, and he too shuffled off to Georgia to hang at his lakehouse, Arians left with these parting words for his players.
“Learn how to prepare better,” Arians said. “We’re still making way too many mental errors in critical situations.”
Now maybe Joe’s definition of “prepare” is different than how Arians defines it. But preparation is basically a simple, easy discipline. Preparation is critical to football. Knowing what you are doing at all times, even when your opponent tries to throw a curveball at you.
Not being prepared, to Joe, is laziness. It’s called getting your head in the game.
Joe has been pretty adamant that the Bucs need to upgrade the secondary if they hope to make a wild card run. But when Joe was reading this quote from Arians, he wondered, could Arians not want to upgrade this year? Meaning, does Arians want to see how players respond these next 10 games so he knows who to weed out in the offseason and who to keep? Who he can count on and who he cannot?
As if these next 10 weeks are one big test?
A coach, in the middle of the season, shouldn’t have to use the local pen and mic club to get the word out that his players need to prepare better.
October 17th, 2019 at 8:07 am
Illegal forward procedure? Huh?
October 17th, 2019 at 8:08 am
Yeah I wonder how that accountability board is working now. . . my guess is there are way to many players on that board – so many that if we tried to sit them to make a point – we wouldn’t have enough players to play the games. Im beginning to lose faith in this coaching staff and it kinda looks like some of the players have already checked out as well. I find it nearly impossible to believe that OJ has forgotten how to get open and make a catch. Maybe the team has given up on JW? sad really
October 17th, 2019 at 8:09 am
Ummm, how about the penalty for purposely taking a delay of game, Bruce? “Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory”….that one is SOLELY on the coach.
October 17th, 2019 at 8:12 am
Arians’ words…..”Learn how to prepare better”
Arians’ actions….”I’m going on vacation”
October 17th, 2019 at 8:25 am
Well BA’s golf cart is always prepared! The golf cart is the most consistent part of this organization since BA arrived.
All the preparation in the world won’t help Jameis, supposedly he’s a workaholic but see what results that delivers.
Perhaps Jameis needs to sit in BA’s Golf cart all week and do nothing. Maybe that consistancy will rub off on him.
October 17th, 2019 at 8:30 am
Players usually commit penalties to make up for talent they don’t have.
October 17th, 2019 at 8:31 am
Not is not an unreasonable take.
When do offensive linemen get nailed for holding? When they get beat. Same as corners.
October 17th, 2019 at 8:49 am
we may be top5 in penalties which are back brakers….
but what are we in TO’s?…..i bet top 5 too….those are just killers….
GO BUCS!!!!!
October 17th, 2019 at 9:01 am
813,
Great point. Turnovers kill teams. From flipping the field position, or throwing a pick six (thrice this year so far in six games), and the shift in momentum that comes with a turnover.
Belichick says: “good players can’t overcome poor coaching”
I say, “good coaching can’t overcome poor execution”
And, “good offensive play can’t be achieved with an inconsistent signal caller.
October 17th, 2019 at 9:03 am
I don’t know why they’re hoarding draft picks when they can acquire great players by trading them. The Rams used two 1st’s and a 4th to acquire a young shut down corner. A Ram’s 1st is about equal to a Buc’s 2nd. They could have used three 2nd round picks for Ramsey.
The could have gotten Peters from the Rams for a 3rd round pick. The Rams owe the Bucs a favor after we traded a low 3rd round pick to them for two compensatory (free) picks that Gump wasted.
The Bucs could have traded all of their 2016 draft picks to the Packers and got Aaron Rodgers. It would have sounded insane at the time but in the long term, it would have paid off big time.
If you’re going to extend the Gumpster Fire for 5 years, you may as well trade all of the draft picks for real NFL players. Maybe, keep the 1st pick for sh!ts and giggles.
Remember, Andy Griffith only gave Barney Fife one bullet and he had to keep it in his pocket. It worked well for Andy and Mayberry in retrospect.
October 17th, 2019 at 9:08 am
Morgus … You nailed it. BA the Head Coach is the one ultimately responsible for better TEAM preparation. BA the Delegator also NEEDS to be more hands-on in ‘overseeing’ individual player preparation by position coaches. Micro-management isn’t necessary, but holding players & coaches ACCOUNTABLE for recurring ‘mistakes’ is absolutely necessary. THAT doesn’t appear to be happening, or at least won’t on the golf course.
Great point Joe about penalties. I actually thought we were doing better this season, UNTIL I got into the game stats & saw that we’re actually doing worse than last year. Penalties are one of those ‘shoot yourself in the foot’ actions that are controllable. IMO it’s a discipline thing. And teams with poor discipline show that in many other ways also (don’t finish blocks, poor tackling techniques, etc). THAT seems to be our modus operandi.
Interesting observation also about upgrading the Secondary BEFORE Oct 29th trade deadline. Personally don’t think that it’s gonna happen though. Now thinking that the Bucs are resigned to this being an evaluation year to see what they have to move forward with. And there is (POTENTIALLY) quite a bit of talent to build around IMO. And IF we re-sign our most productive FAs for 2020 & 2021 AND have a couple of very good drafts AND sign a few quality FAs to ‘plug the holes’ then I think we really could be a playoff contender, possibly in 2020 but more likely in 2021. So yes, I think that “these next 10 weeks are one big test” like you speculated.
October 17th, 2019 at 9:45 am
Kind of agree that penalties can be a sign of getting beat, or even a sign of getting frustrated or checking out of a game out of reach.
Also.. don’t want to go as far as say games are rigged… but we are def one of those teams that don’t get respect.. and there does seem to be a little bit of bias of favouring teams that are darlings… if we step up and somehow get this turned around we may be able to change that at some point..
October 17th, 2019 at 9:46 am
anonymous
your exactly right!!!!!
“good coaching can’t overcome poor execution”
And, “good offensive play can’t be achieved with an inconsistent signal caller.
GO BUCS!!!!
October 17th, 2019 at 10:33 am
I lost ALL confidence in BA and Company during the London Debacle. We were sold on coaching as the fix for what ails the same basic team for the last two years. It hasn’t happened. Hell, BA can walk away tomorrow.
JayMiss is still a turnover disaster.
The defense is still in shambles.
Sure, the offense stats look great; the defense against the run looks terrific, BUT…
The ONLY stat that matters is Ws and they remain static.
Time to blow this mess up and start over from top to bottom.
October 17th, 2019 at 10:40 am
@Nprricheysageboy…. I would agree but when the 3 stooges errr the Glazers are the ones picking the GM and head coach we can only expect more of the same.
October 17th, 2019 at 10:46 am
I agree most penalties occur when getting beat, which is a symptom not the problem. So how do you fix the problem instead of the symptom…teaching good technique fixes most problems, lesser talented players can outmatch/win against a more talented player by proper technique. On the offensive line most of that is proper footwork/ balance and hand placement. For a DB this is again good footwork based on route reading, understanding where the WR wants to go and directing him to reroute the pattern to your advantage, also knowing where your help is. All of this takes massive amounts of time, and working on the little “boring” things rather than the more “elegant” things.
October 17th, 2019 at 11:15 am
At this point, they can blow it up or burn it down for all I care. This is disgusting from top to bottom anymore
October 17th, 2019 at 12:12 pm
“…IF we re-sign our most productive FAs for 2020 & 2021 AND have a couple of very good drafts AND sign a few quality FAs to ‘plug the holes’ then I think we really could be a playoff contender, possibly in 2020 but more likely in 2021.”
I would just say that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.
October 17th, 2019 at 12:25 pm
So much for the BA accountability stuff.
October 17th, 2019 at 1:14 pm
Bucmania
Right on. Haven’t seen what coaching this super sized staff is doing. We’ve been out coached in games this year far more often than not.
October 17th, 2019 at 1:15 pm
Joe
Is BA’s house on Lake Lanier?
I’m 40 minutes from there, maybe I’ll stop by and see him, ask him a couple things.