Will Gholston

Joe has written previously about training camp illusions. They’re an annual phenomenon for every team.

What you see isn’t always what you get.

After practice this morning, Joe asked Bucco Bruce Arians to talk about what film study of his defense in Friday’s intrasquad scrimmage revealed. Much was said and written before the film study about Tom Brady having his way with the defense. So Joe wanted to hear the review after more scrutiny.

Arians liked what he saw from the defense — and it carried over to today.

“I thought the defense [on Friday], they gave up a play or two, but they came right back and stopped them,” Arians said. “You know, we gave up the one long pass when Carlton [Davis] slipped and we held them to three. It was not like anything was going bad against them.

“I thought they did a good job; they probably had a couple sacks I didn’t call. But overall I was very pleased [with Friday]. I was very pleased with the way they showed up today.”

Joe’s pleased to hear about the sacks that weren’t called, referring to the no-hitting-quarterbacks rules in Bucs camp. If they would have been sacks on Tom Brady, well, that’s not good. But if they were second-team sacks, then that’s a good sign for the Bucs’ depth, where they don’t have much off the edge.