Give Lavonte David And Devin White A Break
August 3rd, 2021
Don’t worry; be happy.
The same person who constantly boasted last summer the Bucs would not make the playoffs said something on Twitter that got Joe’s attention.
Who has the best defensive line in the NFL? Dianna Russini of BSPN quickly pointed out WTF has the best defensive line.
OK, fine. Washington has a very good albeit young defensive line. But honey, did you happen to watch the Super Bowl? The Chiefs couldn’t do squat against the Bucs.
And when WTF played the Bucs, that defensive line gave up 31 points. The Chiefs against the Bucs? Three field goals was it. Not even a touchdown.
Joe maintains the Bucs have a better defensive line than WTF, though it’s close. Now front-seven? Joe doesn’t think there is a team with the Bucs’ talent there.
And a key to that ferocious front-seven is the inside linebackers, Lavonte David and Devin White. Thomas Bassinger of Football Outsiders noted in the Football Outsiders 2021 Almanac that David and White have a fair amount of missed tackles.
But as Bassinger points out, anyone with a pair of eyes can see how good David and White are. If they miss a tackle here or there, eh? They will make up for it.
White and David were also among the seven linebackers to be charted with at least 16 broken tackles. That’s more of a quibble than cause for concern. They’re relentless defenders who cover a lot of ground. When you reach the ballcarrier more often than other players, you’re likely to whiff a little more often than other players.
Bingo! In other words, you miss every pitch you don’t swing at.
Always remember and never forget, if someone tries to diminish any starter on the Bucs or use some statistical hopscotch to suggest a Bucs starter is no good, all you have to do is yell, “Scoreboard.”
The Bucs are your defending Super Bowl champions.
August 3rd, 2021 at 12:10 am
Bucs must’ve missed 25 tackles vs Rams last year. They ran short curl routes to use our own speed against us. But we learned from it as the year progressed.
August 3rd, 2021 at 12:36 am
The Bucs have a top 3 offense and defense. Sports shows can’t say this over and over again and keep viewers. They have to mix things up.
August 3rd, 2021 at 1:32 am
Probably not a good idea to call women honey anymore. They feel it’s condescending and rude. Just watching your back big guy. You gotta be careful in 2021 there’s a group who gets offended for everything under the sun.
August 3rd, 2021 at 1:34 am
Great article. Made me laugh out loud (so I just won’t abbreviate it).
August 3rd, 2021 at 4:21 am
What
The
F***
Wash
Football
Team
They should’ve stuck with Redskins. lol.
August 3rd, 2021 at 5:06 am
One hallmark of the truly GREAT Monte Kiffen defenses was they almost NEVER missed a tackle.
August 3rd, 2021 at 7:30 am
Kinda chuckle when media types start quibbling over who has the best defensive Front-4 or the best Front-7 or the best WRs or the best whatever. It’s about who has the best all-around TEAM.
In this era of salary CAP woes, it looks to be easy for teams to pump far too much of their available $$$ into building one portion of a team but have to settle for mediocrity someplace else. Bucs navigated those hurdles very nicely last year and it paid off handsomely. Seems like we’re doing the same this year, but that ending remains to be written.
Washington? Not so much. Pumped their available $$$ into defense but their offense suffered. Result … 7-9 last year. Although they did win their division (hey, it’s weak), they couldn’t make it through Rnd 1 of the playoffs. Great to have the #4 defense, but when it’s married to the #25 offense odds are you won’t get very far in today’s playoff rounds.
August 3rd, 2021 at 7:32 am
Every single starter on Washington’s defensive line would be second string on our team. Russini’s record speaks for itself. The Joe’s find some horrible lists, but I found one the other day that had Chase Young ranked as the number one defensive end in football ahead of Myles Garrett and others. These list makers are off the chain this year, especially when you start making someone like Russini look credible when it concerns our team.
August 3rd, 2021 at 8:09 am
Female football “sports analysts ” are a joke. Talking heads with boobs and big hair never played a down in their life’s. Same for many of the male loud mouths. Got to respect former players and coaches opinions way more. The rest are parasites living off the real football people who earned their spurs. Except for us fans who are the real experts!
August 3rd, 2021 at 8:17 am
“Always remember and never forget…” that a certain Joe swore off the Bucs if they dare to draft an inside LB with a top 5 pick.
….Scoreboard. Still waiting for you to walk the plank.
August 3rd, 2021 at 8:46 am
Wasn’t meant to be endearing.
August 3rd, 2021 at 8:59 am
Wild Bill & Joe … Probably should’ve listed to Drunkinybor? And Medicated Pete is just getting revved up.
August 3rd, 2021 at 2:24 pm
Or…WFT could’ve just changed their mascot to a potato and the old nickname would be appropriate!
August 3rd, 2021 at 9:48 pm
Geeeesh. Two different defenses because of their defensive line and Joe should know this if he didn’t spend so much time in the bars in south Tampa.
Washington has four down lineman, the Bucs have three and yes the four downline on the WFT are probably better than the Bucs three.
But the Bucs LB’s are far away better than Washington’s and two of them, JPP and Barrett play as DL on many plays but are designated LBs.
Now if you want to talk about front 7, I would say the Bucs are in thr Top 5.
August 3rd, 2021 at 9:50 pm
LOL. Mort, Joe is often wrong. He wanted the Bucs to draft the party animal QB from Texas A & M and of course America’s QB.
August 4th, 2021 at 5:26 am
“Honey”? Oh, Joe, what decade are you emerging from?
August 6th, 2021 at 2:24 am
Also they get there so fast sometimes they are caught out of position just because of their own speed… But they make the runner turn inside or pause for that split second and the next guy gets them… When you’re missing a few tackles here and there 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage it’s ok