“Maybe Todd Bowles Wasn’t Kidding”
June 5th, 2021
The Sage of Tampa Bay Sports is Ira Kaufman. He is Tampa’s only Pro Football Hall of Fame selector, a member of the prestigious Hall seniors committee, and Ira’s full-time journey around the NFL landscape began as a New York Giants beat writer in 1979. Joe hired Ira just about five years ago to fire up columns and podcasts here ever week. All of Ira’s work is presented by another Tampa Bay treasure, Bill Currie Ford, family owned on Dale Mabry Highway for the past 61 years. Ira’s good friend, Bill Currie Ford GM Sean Sullivan, has been giving personal service to JoeBucsFan readers for years. Just ask! He loves Bucs fans and the Ira Kaufman discount.
BY IRA KAUFMAN
Tampa Bay’s sprint to the finish was so impressive that it’s easy to forget the Buc pass defense has plenty of room for improvement.
You can’t run on the Bucs — that’s a given. Some of the best backs in the league have given it a go against this rush defense and Dalvin Cook is one of the few to emerge with decent production. But in this pass-happy league, opposing quarterbacks often had reason to smile.
Todd Bowles has plenty to upgrade, explains Ira Kaufman.
Maybe Todd Bowles wasn’t kidding when he suggested his defense was just “scratching the surface,” because when it comes to pass defense, there is considerable room for growth.
While it’s true Buc opponents abandoned the ground game early and often, it’s also true only Seattle allowed more completions. It’s also true that Tampa Bay allowed 29 TD passes during the regular season, along with a 67 percent completion rate.
Those are the metrics that keep Bowles up at night, along with the realization that a strong pass rush kept those numbers from being even more disheartening.
The Bucs were tied for fourth with 48 sacks, third with 73 hurries, third with 68 QB knockdowns and second with 189 QB pressures. Yet with all that heat, opposing quarterbacks still managed to compile a 94.3 passer rating, which ranked in the middle of the pack.
The pass rushers, led by Shaq Barrett, Jason Pierre-Paul and Devin White, did some outstanding work while the Bucs went 11-5. But there were times, especially if quarterbacks had too much time, when Tampa Bay’s young secondary appeared overwhelmed.
The first quarter of the regular-season loss to the Chiefs was a defensive disaster as Patrick Mahomes and Tyreek Hill played pitch-and-catch. And let’s not forget the opening half of the Week 15 game at Atlanta, where Matt Ryan exploited a pass rush that was still sleeping in Buckhead.
The Falcons led 17-0 at the half as Ryan completed 23-of-31 passes for 235 yards without being dropped — or pressured. The Bucs rallied for a 31-27 triumph as Devin White posted three second-half sacks, but Calvin Ridley feasted with 10 catches for 163 yards, despite the absence of annual Buc nemesis Julio Jones.
Carlton Davis
Carlton Davis, Sean Murphy-Bunting, Jamel Dean, Antoine Winfield Jr. and Jordan Whitehead took turns looking rather ordinary when quarterbacks had time to sift through their progressions.
To be fair, you could say the same thing about virtually every defensive backfield in the NFL … their success is predicated on pressure up front.
Any skeptics out there?
For example, the four stingiest pass defenses in terms of opposing passer rating were Pittsburgh, the Rams, Washington and New Orleans.
Front-loaded
Next, let’s look at the sack rankings: the Steelers were first, the Rams finished No. 2, Washington was sixth and the Saints were No. 8.
Tampa Bay’s overall defense was stout during the closing 8-game winning streak, but there were a few blips. The first half in Atlanta was awful and Bowles wasn’t thrilled with his defense at Washington in the opening playoff matchup.
Pass rushers are more valuable than defensive backs. That was true 50 years ago and it’s even more true today. Being forced to cover Hill and Travis Kelce for 2.1 seconds rather than 3.4 seconds makes a huge difference. Any quarterback other than Mahomes would have been sacked seven times in the Super Bowl instead of three.
If Vita Vea stays healthy, Tampa Bay’s pass rush figures to be even more effective this fall.
That’s great news for young corners and safeties who are still developing. But when opposing quarterbacks don’t feel the heat, they have a knack of putting the Buc secondary in a deep freeze.
Ballhawks, they are not. Effective, they can be.
“I know one thing,” White said. “We might be young, but we can get after it when we’ve got our minds set to it.”
In other words, no pressure.
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June 5th, 2021 at 5:31 pm
Vasy? Dude? Come on
June 5th, 2021 at 5:38 pm
Great perspective Ira.
June 5th, 2021 at 5:52 pm
I love the title of this story “ Maybe Todd Bowles Wasn’t Kidding”. It is a perfect title because Bowles comes across as a guy with 0% ability to kid.
June 5th, 2021 at 5:58 pm
Couldn’t agree more.
June 5th, 2021 at 6:54 pm
Ira, good reality check for many readers of JBF. As I have said before about the Secondary, you are only as strong as your weakest link. Time for the secondary step up. Back to Back Championships are on the line baby!! GO BUCS!!!
June 6th, 2021 at 12:52 am
Bowels tells how it is if he’s gonna answer a question. Now enter Vita. Anchor to the front seven getting to the QB and that’s where it all begins. I have no doubt in the rise of this secondary. They caught on later and came together when we started playing closer. This defensive coaching and have the goat of reading defense correcting where the defense in offseason workouts.
June 6th, 2021 at 5:55 am
@Devin White … “I know one thing, we might be young, but we can get after it when we’ve got our minds set to it.”
What exactly does that mean? This isn’t pick-and-choose, as in ‘Sometimes we’ll set our minds to it, sometimes we won’t’. IMO today’s NFL is all about making plays, on BOTH sides of the ball. Make enough plays and you’ll win (aka, Bucs playoff win against the Saints). Don’t make enough and you’ll get taken to the woodshed (aka, our 2nd game against the Saints). Bucs put roughly the same team on the field, but the difference was in making plays when it really counted.
In our 38-3 loss to the Saints here at RayJay, Bucs stunk it up: 13 first downs, 1-for-12 on 3rd & 4th down conversions, 3 INTs, less than 20 mins TOP, less than 200 yds of total yardage. And in the process we let Brees go 29-for-35 for almost 300 yds passing, we let them run for 138 yds, let them go 10-for-16 in 3rd & 4th down conversions, and keep the ball for over 40 mins TOP. We let THEM make plays, and we didn’t make nearly enough … on offense OR defense. IOW, we sucked.
And yet 9 weeks later we kicked their arses 30-20 in the SuperDome. This time it was the Bucs making the plays, and yes, mostly on defense: 4 Takeaways (to 0 giveaways for our offense), held Brees to 20-for-35 for only 190 passing yds, held them to only 28:39 mins TOP. The Bucs made plays when it really counted, mostly by generating turnovers & then our offense capitalized on those. Same team; different results.
And BTW Ira, thank you for keeping it real. I was starting to feel that JBF was stuck in the middle of a lovefest with all these ‘expectations’ that the 2021 Bucs will be the greatest team of all time, go 20-0 and be handed the Lombardi trophy just for showing up. This team still has a lot of room for improvement, and every game will be a dogfight.
June 6th, 2021 at 6:08 am
Maybe just maybe it’s time to reconsider the defensive priority of first shutting down the run. I mean it’s not like the stAts aren’t screaming out to be noticed for what they say.
Nope …let’s just get wasted on the bromosas and celebrate how awesome our run defense is… no body runs on us….whoopie freaking do……
Wake up Joebrosa…it’s 2021
June 6th, 2021 at 6:57 am
Interesting point D1. Seems strange that both Bowles AND Smitty seemed to share a similar passion for ‘Stop the run first’. Of course, Bowles is a lot better at it. Helps too that he has the horses to make it happen … Suh, Vea, JPP & Shaq could all be bonafide HOF candidates one day; McCoy, Baker, Ayers & Spence not-so-much.
June 6th, 2021 at 8:43 am
Bucs had lowest rushing attempts against them and lowest number of first downs against them last year… What’s with the whining about the secondary? They’re great when 100% healthy- beware of stats- sometimes they lead to fake football news.
June 6th, 2021 at 9:29 am
The Bucs, like all NFL teams, live or die from pass rush pressure or lack there of! The Bucs should be just fine as far as that goes! With Suh and Vita pushing qbs out of the pocket into the skillful hands of JPP and Shaq, like in the super bowl, this season will be one to remember!! A good for time to be a Bucs fan! GO BUCS!!
June 6th, 2021 at 10:34 am
As usual, this team will go as far as the defense allows it.
Defense wins, offense sells tickets.
The D has a T on which to improve.
June 6th, 2021 at 11:27 am
Your stuff is awesome 👌
June 6th, 2021 at 2:07 pm
D1, I personally don’t think it’s time to reconsider the defensive mentality of shutting down the run first. Not to take anything away from the importance of pass defense, but…
If the defensive focus isn’t on shutting down the run first, then it allows the other team to more effectively control the clock/time of possession. And it’s been shown time and time again: shut down the run, and teams will begin to abandon the run, thus making them one dimensional. This allows the front 7 to do what they are also very good at – pinning their ears back and going after the QB.
I’m not saying that a balanced defense isn’t important; not by any stretch. But to me, it all starts with stopping the run.
June 6th, 2021 at 3:50 pm
Hui,hi d supa bowl said enough,but now da ira master, change out your first unit,more often den normal to hipe refreshing motivating your whole defense,like brady multiple recievers should have changed out defense up tone n motivated true da whole game playing like evverygame is SUPA bowl game.every game play like it’s da supa bowl bucs repeat supa bowl ….
June 6th, 2021 at 11:02 pm
The Deflator Says:
June 6th, 2021 at 2:07 pm
D1, I personally don’t think it’s time to reconsider the defensive mentality of shutting down the run first. Not to take anything away from the importance of pass defense, but…
If the defensive focus isn’t on shutting down the run first, then it allows the other team to more effectively control the clock/time of possession. And it’s been shown time and time again: shut down the run, and teams will begin to abandon the run, thus making them one dimensional. This allows the front 7 to do what they are also very good at – pinning their ears back and going after the QB.
I’m not saying that a balanced defense isn’t important; not by any stretch. But to me, it all starts with stopping the run.
Exactly, shutting down the run not only keeps the other team from being g able to control the tempo, or game clock, it does free up our LBs to hunt. That forces QBs to hurry through thier progressions and get the ball out fast, which leads to mistakes. A incomplete pass is 0 yards, while a rush can still generate yards shortening yards needed for first down. Needing 7+ yards for first down limits what plays are viable to be called, hence allowing your defends to anticipate what is going to be called depending on which QB/OC you are facing since all have their tendencies to call certain ads depending upon what is needed.