Gameday Tampa Bay
October 13th, 2019
Game 6
Stinking Panthers (3-2) vs. Bucs (2-3) at London
Kickoff: 9:30 a.m.
TV: NFL Network, WMOR-TV Channel 32. This game will not be broadcast on NFL Sunday Ticket.
Radio: Buccaneers Radio Network WXTB-FM 97.9 in the Tampa-St. Petersburg region; 97.9 FM ESPN Radio in Tallahassee (Transmisiones de radio en español en WTMP-FM 96.1 y WMGG-AM 1470 en Tampa); SiriusXM Channel 81.
Weather: Not bad football weather despite the game being played overseas. At kickoff, per AccuWeather.com, the temperature in London is expected to be 59 and should remain steady through the game. There is a chance of showers near the end of the first quarter.
Odds: Per the Mirage in Las Vegas, Stinking Panthers -2.5, O/U 47.5.
Outlook: Could this be a do-or-die game? It could be. Falling to 2-4 is not an insurmountable mountain to overcome but for the Bucs to have a prayer of a wild card, then the team would have to finish 6-4 after the bye, which is next weekend. For a realistic shot at a wild card, more likely they would have to close the season at 7-3 to finish 9-7. Joe isn’t sure this team has that in them. So they really must win today. A loss today will likely push many of Bucs fandom into full-blown apathy. And the hardcore fans will be preparing for the draft before Halloween. Once again. Same as it always was. Same ol’ Bucs. Somehow, the Bucs are going to have to find an answer to the right side of the offensive line with both Alex Cappa and Demar Dotson out likely for the next couple of games. This also tells Joe that tight end O.J. Howard will not be used much as a weapon as he will be held back to block. Defensively the Bucs have to somehow find an answer to the train wreck that is the secondary. It is just galling to Joe all the draft capital this team has spent on defensive backs the past four years and have virtually nothing to show for it. If the Bucs don’t slow down Stinking Panthers backup quarterback Kyle Allen — and we all know how well the Bucs play down to backup and rookie quarterbacks — this could be a very long morning and by noon we should know if we should start monitoring the draft or not. Today would be a very nice day for Devin White to show people that he’s really on the Bucs’ roster. Not just a rumor.
Trinkets: Stinking Panthers QB Kyle Allen passed for 181 yards and a touchdown without a pick last week. He is the first quarterback in the Super Bowl era to have zero picks while winning his first four starts. Allen has at least two touchdowns and no picks in two of his past three road starts. … RB Chrisitan McCaffrey matched a career-high with 237 yards from scrimmage (176 rushing, 61 receiving) & 3 touchdowns (2 rushing, 1 receiving) last week. He joined Hall of Famer Thurman Thomas (1991) as the only players with 500 or more rush yards (587) and 250 or more receptions yards (279) in a team’s first 5 games in NFL history. Has 371 scrimmage yards (123.7 per game) and 3 touchdowns (2 rush, 1 receiving) in his last three games against the Bucs. … Rookie RB Reggie Bonnafon had a career-high 80 rushing yards and his first career rush touchdown last week. … WR D.J. Moore had 6 catches for a team-high 91 yards in Week 5. He had 9 catches for 89 yards in Week 2 meeting with the Bucs. Moore looks for his third game in row vs. NFC South teams with 80 or more receiving yards. … WR Curtis Samuel has caught a touchdown in two of his last three road games. Samuel is looking for third game in a row against the Bucs with 5 or more catches and 85 or more yards receiving. … TE Greg Olsen had 6 catches for 110 yards in Week 2 meeting. … LB Luke Kuechly had a team-high 12 tackles and a pass defended last week. Kuechly had 18 tackles in last meeting with Bucs. Since 2012, Kuechly leads the NFL in tackles (1,004). … De Mario Addison had a sack and a forced fumble in Week 5. He has 7 sacks in past 6 games against the Bucs. Addison is looking for his fourth in row with a sack. … Rookie LB Brian Burns had a sack, a forced fumble and a 53-yard scoop and score last week. Burns leads all NFC rookies in sacks with 3.5. … DT Gerald McCoy had 54.5 sacks in 9 seasons (2010-18) with the Bucs. … QB Jameis Winston had 204 pass yards and 2 touchdowns against no interceptions last week. Has 824 pass yards (274.7 per game) and 4 touchdowns without a pick in his past 3 games against Carolina. … RB Peyton Barber had 82 rush yards and touchdown in Week 2 meeting. Looks for for his third in a row against Carolina with a rushing touchdown. … RB Ronald Jones has at least 70 yards rushing in 3 of past 5 games. … WR Chris Godwin had 7 catches for a team-high 125 yards receiving and two touchdown catches last week. He leads the NFL with 6 touchdown catches and ranks third in receiving yards (511). Godwin has 625 receiving yards (104.2 per game) and 8 touchdown catches in his past 6 games. … WR Mike Evans has 4 touchdowns catches in his past 3 games. Since 2014, Evans ranks fourth in the NFL in receiving yards (6,471) and receiving touchdowns (44). … LB Shaq Barrett leads the NFL with 9 sacks. He had 3 sacks in last game against Carolina, all in the third quarter. … LB Lavonte David is the only player with 900 or more tackles (919), 20 or more sacks (21.5) and 15 or more forced fumbles (18) since 2012. David looks for his fifth game in row against Carolina with 7 or more tackles. … LB Kevin Minter had a team-high 10 tackles in Week 5. Minter looks for his third in row with at least 9 tackles. … CB Vernon Hargreaves had a career-high 12 tackles and a pass defended in Week 2 meeting. Hargreaves is looking for his third in row against Carolina with a pass defended. … Rookie CB Sean Murphy-Bunting had 5 tackles and first-career interception in Week 5. … S Jordan Whitehead had 5 passes defended in the past 2 games and looks for his third game in a row with at least 2 passes defended.
October 13th, 2019 at 1:06 am
I forget the exact reference for these two women pictured…Would you mind reminding me Joe?
October 13th, 2019 at 1:19 am
Clicky on the photo.
October 13th, 2019 at 1:24 am
Joe there is a bleacher report tweet talking about OJ Howard trade rumors do you know anything about it?
October 13th, 2019 at 2:00 am
Wow, LOL on that photo Joe. Maybe Joe Redner will hire them at the Mons……
October 13th, 2019 at 2:05 am
Please give dean some snaps outside and move hargraves inside and just leave auclair off the right tackle so that we can get OJ involved in the passing game as he needs to be our third option. The other receivers #3 thru #6 can spend their snaps on special teams. We should be using 2 TE and Evan’s and Godwin outside with Jones in the back 90% of the time. Bucs win 24 to 20…..
October 13th, 2019 at 2:58 am
Regarding the weather: rained all day yesterday and will rain ALL DAY TODAY. take the under.
October 13th, 2019 at 3:13 am
Pittshore: that could help the Bucs. Being down 10-3 at half, better than being boatraced 28-0 if the Bucs secondary goes belly up. A sloppy field could be an equalizer for the Bucs.
October 13th, 2019 at 4:05 am
Trainwreck of a Secondary? Nothing to show for it? Devin White a rumor? Attaboy, keep HOPE alive. This might come as a shock, but there are still a few fans left in Bucsville who really do love the Bucs & want to see them show some steady improvement. Fans like that know that their Bucs have been a hot mess for over a decade now. And to those fans, that says more about ownership & management & coaching than it could ever say about the players. This Bucs organization has lacked LEADERSHIP for years now.
In my many years in the military, when an organization was woefully underperforming the solution was usually that the powers that be would cut off the head. Leadership in that organization is ‘reassigned’ & new leadership brought in with specific orders to FIX IT. There might be a few additional ‘pieces’ brought in to help the new leadership FIX IT, but usually that was minimal I found.
Well that’s pretty much the situation with the Bucs when Dirk Koetter was fired & BA replaced him. He actually got to bring in quite a few ‘new pieces’ to help him FIX IT (Todd Bowles being the most important new piece IMO), BUT … ownership & management stayed the same (we didn’t cut off enough of the head?). So BA’s largely assumed command of last year’s ‘hot mess’ … with orders to FIX IT … but far too many (and especially those in the media) seem to want INSTANT RESULTS. Very rarely does that happen IMO; usually ‘steady improvement’ is the best you can HOPE for.
Some (ahem) keep harping on the Bucs’ defense as being a trainwreck, but to me that’s incredibly short-sighted. Todd Bowles has done an incredible job with this defense thus far. This year’s defense is much much better in stopping the run (we were #26 in Rushing Yardage Allowed last year; thus far this year we’re #2). We’re doing much better on Takeaways this year than we did last year 9which helps the Bucs’ offense?). Yes we’ve given up 148 points in 5 games, but at least 24 of those can be directly tagged to the Bucs’ offense (3 Pick-6 & a Safety … and actually more), so even POINTS ALLOWED is realistically quite a bit better than last year.
And he’s done it with one hand tied behind his back. For starters, we’ve played some VERY good offensive teams early-on this season. For another, our defensive personnel (and especially in the Secondary) have been limited. JPP, our premier DE – OUT. Devin White, our #5 pick … OUT. Jamel Dean, promising CB … OUT. Ryan Smith, one of our 2 more experienced CBs … SUSPENDED. Sean Murphy-Bunting, our 2nd Rnd CB pick … slower in developing than hoped. Justin Evans, our most experienced Safety … OUT. Several of those guys are just now coming back, and they WILL make a difference, going forward.
So could we please have a little more PATIENCE (and less whining), and start looking for PROGRESS? Whereas some folks (ahem) point to our defense as being our biggest weakness, I see our offense as being our biggest limitation right now. Offensively we’ve had ONE excellent game, TWO OK games, and TWO stinkers. IMO THAT’S what this team needs to be focusing on … seeing more CONSISTENT PERFORMANCE from our Bucs offense. Our offense has gotten the lion’s-share of the resources (salary Cap & draft picks); they NEED to produce accordingly or folks can forget all the having-a-chance-at-a-wildcard-spot talk.
October 13th, 2019 at 4:07 am
Wow, 4:05 and I’m already in Moderation Joe. I guess contrary opinions to defense-bashing should earn me time in the cooler.
October 13th, 2019 at 6:22 am
Hahahah JOE!!!!! love those panther hooahs..thank you for the laugh, i forgot about those shenanigans. GO BUCS
October 13th, 2019 at 6:41 am
Not munch to look at back in the day…bet they have not aged well…
October 13th, 2019 at 6:50 am
who are these gurls ?
October 13th, 2019 at 6:51 am
cheerleader mugshots ?
October 13th, 2019 at 7:14 am
Hope we win but ive got a benjamine on the kitties…..i know us and how we play against backup QB’s.
October 13th, 2019 at 7:26 am
True story…back when that Panthers cheerleader scandal hit one of my good buddies was looking for a football team to follow. I told him the story of those two “wild cats”, and at that moment he chose the Panthers to become a fan of. Under most circumstances I’d have to give him crap for picking the Panthers, but you can’t hate on a guy for appreciating hot girl on girl cheerleaders working on a “new dance routine” in a public bathroom 🙂 We’ve had many years now of “you got the tab for this bar bill!” wagers, so I’m hoping the Bucs win me lunch and beers yet again!
October 13th, 2019 at 7:36 am
Joe that is such an old joke. Let’s stop rehashing that every year.
October 13th, 2019 at 9:12 am
Defense Rules — Amen x 100!!