When The Season Turned
February 2nd, 2021
All good now.
It is comforting to Joe to watch a national report on the Bucs from two people with Tampa Bay ties.
Sage Steele, once the sports anchor at WFTS-TV Channel 28, and Jeff Darlington, the pride of Seminole High School (his parents still live in Pinellas County) bring this report on the Bucs as Super Bowl LV inches toward kickoff.
Darlington is convinced the alley-stomping of the Bucs defense in the first quarter of the Bucs-Chiefs game in November was the turning point in the Tampa Bay season.
It was Darlington who broke the story that Bucs coach Bucco Bruce Arians, quarterbacks coach Clyde Christensen and Rondé Barber were going to go golfing with park-violating, home-invading, NFLPA-ignoring, down-forgetting, handshake-stiffing, jet-ski-losing, biscuit-baking Tom Brady (before the NFL put the kibosh on the bye-week outing due to The Sickness).
That, per Darlington, did not stop Arians and Brady from having a brainstorming session (virtually?) to figure out the offense.
Darlington has some sort of obvious pipeline into Brady’s camp, and he claims Brady was in fact frustrated by how the offense was progressing at the time. And Darlington reported in November that Brady was demanding more from coaches. Sicnce that Chiefs game, the Bucs offense has been humming for the most part.
You can see Darlington’s BSPN report below.
I really believe the Bucs hit a crossroads to their season after their last game against the Chiefs heading into their bye. The path they chose, ultimately, is the one that led them to Sunday’s rematch. An explanation from SportsCenter: pic.twitter.com/jmbNXMkw8t
— Jeff Darlington (@JeffDarlington) February 2, 2021
February 2nd, 2021 at 11:37 am
Stop the cheetah.
February 2nd, 2021 at 11:42 am
Joe can you call out Yahoo Sports? There is an absolute garbage BS article on Yahoo Sports (front page) suggesting that Devin White and Lavonte are potentially beginning a bounty program for the Bucs defense? How irresponsible is that!
February 2nd, 2021 at 11:43 am
Sadly, they are reporting nothing inaccurate. Devin White talked about it in his media session yesterday.
February 2nd, 2021 at 11:57 am
$1000 dollar for the most tackles or biggest play is very different than causing injuries.
February 2nd, 2021 at 12:01 pm
The turning point in the Bucs’ season is when they were down 17-0 halftime vs Falcons and came back to win 31-27.
Since that halftime, in 5 1/2 games, Bucs have scored 207 points on offense- that’s 9 points per quarter.
And the Bucs have led every one of those games at halftime except the Saints game when they were tied.
February 2nd, 2021 at 12:23 pm
An in game bet for whoever makes the biggest play is a far cry from a bounty. Did I miss something ?
February 2nd, 2021 at 12:40 pm
On a side note:
Crossroads
…one of the best episodes on band of brothers
Watched the other day. Went on bender since i havent re-seen show in years
February 2nd, 2021 at 12:49 pm
A bounty involves targeting opponent’s players…..not individual performances in general…..
A wager on who makes the biggest play first is different than the first to cause another player to leave the game.
February 2nd, 2021 at 1:00 pm
Much ado about nothing. Media loves controversy. Speaking of which . Some inappropriate questions being asked. What the hill was the guy doing asking Shaq about how he disciplines his kids ? I only caught part of it but it seemed very out of bounds.
February 2nd, 2021 at 1:09 pm
kentucky buc, i could not agree more, by the way both sides of my family hails from knox county ky, a little town called barboursville, small world
February 2nd, 2021 at 1:19 pm
Interesting statement in that Darlington clip: “Ever since Week 12, Brady has been lights out”.
Bucs have won all 7 games since that Week 12 BYE week. Our offense has put up 240 pts (34.3 PPG), while our defense has only allowed 144 pts (20.6 PPG). That 2 TD difference in Pts Scored vs Pts Allowed is quite impressive … for BOTH sides of the ball. IOW it’s been a T-E-A-M winning streak, and that’s what it takes to win championships IMO.
It hasn’t always been pretty (the 1st Falcons game wasn’t pretty; the Washington game wasn’t pretty), but TOGETHER they got ‘er done. Defense contributed 12 takeaways in those 7 games which yielded some great field position more than once, and the offense minimized their giveaways (5 total, but 3 were in our last game against the Packers).
Just as importantly, our offense has only been shut out in 7 qtrs out of the 28 qtrs in those 7 games. And what’s neat, Bucs have been ahead at halftime in 5 out of those 7 games, and tied in 1 other. We were only behind at halftime in that 1st Falcons game, but came roaring back starting late in the 3rd qtr. Personally I still think that was our turn-around game, but the case could be made for several others.
February 2nd, 2021 at 1:48 pm
Mitch, I didn’t know Yahoo still existed , let alone had a sports section. I suggest a switch to google. You don’t still use hotmail or aol.com do you ?
February 2nd, 2021 at 2:04 pm
Bounty???? Smh
One of you is so unprofessional.
February 2nd, 2021 at 5:28 pm
F Yahoo! Sports. Some pimple faced idiot who barely knows football. He obviously has no idea what a “bounty” program actually is