Bucs Better “Wake Up”
October 19th, 2022
Had to expect dropoff.
It appears one national reporter suggests the fall from the mountaintop may have happened quicker for the Bucs than they expected.
While this is no excuse for an offensive coordinator just about ignoring how he had a far superior talent advantage at wide receiver when his opponent was using USFL players for its secondary, Jeff Chadiha of NFL.com pretty much says the Bucs are an example of attrition from a Super Bowl team.
Forget the loss to the Steelers if you can; Chadiha notes the Bucs were struggling before the game.
Bucs had better start waking up: We’ve gotten so accustomed to Tom Brady doing Tom Brady things over the past two decades that it’s become easy to believe he can accomplish anything. That belief may not apply to what’s happening in Tampa Bay these days. It’s fair to say this team was crippled by injuries at the start of the year. It would not be accurate to say that is their biggest problem today.
The Bucs simply aren’t very good at the moment — they’ve lost three of their last four — and this goes far beyond their 20-18 defeat to a Pittsburgh Steelers team that rallied behind a quarterback (Mitch Trubisky) who was benched two weeks ago. The offense has no rhythm or consistency. A defense that started the season suffocating opponents has become incredibly vulnerable, as the Chiefs hung 41 points on them two weeks ago, and Trubisky completed 9 of 12 passes for 144 yards and a touchdown in emergency duty. There’s a lot of talk about how Brady missed the team’s walkthrough on Saturday to attend the wedding of Patriots owner Bob Kraft — Bucs coach Todd Bowles told reporters Monday that Brady “works as hard as anybody” — but that stuff isn’t going to impact an entire team. The Bucs still have a lot of key pieces from a team that won a Super Bowl two years ago. The problem is they just don’t know to make the most of them right now.
Joe cannot rag on the defense. Sure, they got blown up by the Chiefs. The defense also got blown up by the slimy Saints the past two years and look where the Bucs were at the end. Right now the Chiefs game appears more exception than the norm.
The defense playing well enough to win, if the offense would hold up its end of the bargain, which they have not.
But let’s look at the offense. Gone is Hall of Fame tight end foot-rubbing Rob Gronkowski. Gone is Hall of Fame talent wide receiver Antonio Brown. Gone is Pro Bowl left guard Ali Marpet. Gone (for now) is Pro Bowl center Ryan Jensen.
And those guys are replaced by Cam Brate/Cade Otton/Ko Kieft/Kyle Rudolph, Russell Gage, Luke Goedeke and Robert Hainsey. Joe means no offense at all to the replacements, but how could there not be a drop off?
Still, the Bucs have enough pieces to win. Look at winning teams around the league and they don’t have the talent on offense the Bucs have. Not even close.
Even someone walking around with a white cane can see the Bucs’ offense terribly misses Bucco Bruce Arians’ red pen.
October 19th, 2022 at 2:56 pm
The Glazers and Mr. Licht better wake up!!
These next 3 games will show the awful play calling when we go 1-2 or 0-3
October 19th, 2022 at 2:58 pm
Marpet and Jensen were huge losses. The drop off to 70 and 67 is gigantic. Oline went from a strength to a glaring weakness very quickly.
October 19th, 2022 at 2:59 pm
When the walking wounded return, they will be fine, imo. Got to win a few games till then. Starting soon.
October 19th, 2022 at 3:00 pm
Joe, you weren’t talking about drop off when you called this the best receiving corps in NFL history. Before they played a game no less. This teams problems are not 100% coaching issues. It’s a problem, but the roster is an issue as well.
October 19th, 2022 at 3:02 pm
It is not just the loss of Marpet and Jensen, it is also the loss of Suh and JPP, combined with bad coaching decisions.
We just are not as good as we used to be, plain and simple.
October 19th, 2022 at 3:04 pm
Well, when half of that four struggle to take a snap or have a meaningful impact…
October 19th, 2022 at 3:21 pm
Bowles is now clearly defensive ,which will result in being even more stubborn-which became his problem in NYJets.
His ” working thru it ” will not get us to the playoffs.. At some point ,the Gazers really need to take some action: the same words, over – n over , aren’t going to change anything.. we’ve got a stubborn HC and a incompetent OC..
October 19th, 2022 at 3:27 pm
Our free agent acquisitions haven’t helped us……Hicks, Julio & Logan out injured…..Gage…average…playing hurt…..Rudolph…..we can’t even suit him up……a pity.
Neal is OK at filling in…
That’s 6 players and we’re getting a little help from 2.
We are having to rely on our rookies too much……
But…..there’s time to get things turned around….and I’m one of the few that think we will.
October 19th, 2022 at 3:33 pm
HA!
They should have awakened a month ago.
October 19th, 2022 at 3:42 pm
I appreciated the questions the press asked Todd this time. They kinda went for the throat. Todd has to now be aware he is skating on thin ice. I am sure he is talking to Arians and Leftwith and I am just anticipating that it’s doing some good. It is not a great thing when the fans are po’d and mostly negative. Todd has obviously been there before.
October 19th, 2022 at 3:42 pm
Even a “blind man”. Well said Joe. Because it’s the absolute truth. I imagine Mr. Leftwich has received the message LOUD AND CLEAR by now. We will all see what he does about his joke of a plan going forward. And like I said, Todd Bowles doesn’t have the guts and apparently is man enough to ask Bruce Arians for help.
I’m tired of a fools pride ruining my Sundays. It’s happened all too often here in Tampa. For instance the Mike Smith CLOWN SHOW that NOBODY STOP (JASON LICHT)! And now what’s looking like another wasted a season or 2. And now there’s the new and improved ULTIMATE CLOWN SHOW of the 2022 season. THE MAN amongst them has been sent to corporate and Bowles has already stated today that this is his team and Bruce isn’t welcome to help.
Right now as it stands, it seems that Todd Bowles, Byron Leftwich, and Jason Licht are also ruining Tom Brady’s farewell, as well. Freaking SUCKS to be so SAD that the Glazers might let this continue……
I’m so much more than sick of either one jackass or the next ruining my football experience.
October 19th, 2022 at 3:46 pm
Apologies, spelling correction… meant to say…. Todd Bowles “IS NOT” MAN ENOUGH TO ASK BRUCE ARIANS FOR HELP! Because he’s another pompous jackass!
October 19th, 2022 at 3:48 pm
The only issue I have with the defense was, against a bad team like the Steelers, who have a bad backup QB in the game, when the blitz is working — why on every 3rd down are you going to a soft defense and having the corners 15 yards off the line of scrimmage and giving up easy 1st downs? It’s really stupid, just as stupid as when Lovie and Dirk did the same thing. I get it, vs good teams with good QBs, you can’t blitz on every down – against Mitch, YES, you can blitz on every single down and expect your corners to make plays.
But the reason they lost on Sunday was 100% on one person, Brian Leftwich, who is literally a moron. Dungy gets dinged for sticking with bad OC’s, but Dungy never had a HOF QB who is the best to ever play the game – he had Shaun King and Trent Dilfer. I get it when that offense is only putting up 17 a game. I mean it’s so bad, the team would be dramatically better off if Clyde Christensen was promoted from QB coach to the OC — and Clyde was SO bad he’s the one who got Dungy fired when he was the OC in 2001.
October 19th, 2022 at 3:58 pm
This game is a little easier for the defence … If they can stop the run.
The offense has to avoid getting gaged.
October 19th, 2022 at 4:00 pm
The offense has 11 false starts. Tied for second most in the league with Seattle. 11. That’s almost 2 a game. It’s a reflection of how inexperienced they are up front. They rank in the middle for team penalties. The FS penalties are something that can be cleaned up. Get on it Todd
October 19th, 2022 at 4:42 pm
Joe – it would be intriguing if you asked BL whether he had regrets about the offensive strategy heading into the Pittsburgh game. The way he answers that question would reveal a lot about his willingness to improve.
October 19th, 2022 at 5:02 pm
the last time the team woke up was when BA was going wild on the sidelines of the saints game, and got ME13 hyped up as well to defend TB12…
and then the whole team came to life, took the bull by the horns, and won the game decisively…
after that they went back to acting like low key, mellow zombies – which is sort of coach bowles vibe and essence – that his players are emulating…
we need a twitched up frothy group – and BA got the players in that mindset…
we don’t need a mellow group like coach – we are not playing golf here or picking daisies
October 19th, 2022 at 5:09 pm
Jeff Chadiha … ‘The offense has no rhythm or consistency. A defense that started the season suffocating opponents has become incredibly vulnerable’.
He nailed our 2 major concerns right there, but that still begs the question ‘How do you FIX IT?’ For months everyone was on Bowles to ‘Keep hands off the offense’, but now it’s become ‘Get on it Todd’ (thanks Redeemer). Can’t have it both ways.
This offense has Leftwich & Brady, plus a thousand assistant coaches, to figure out how to FIX IT. What it also has though is several very inexperienced players (Hainsey, Goedeke, Otton, Kieft, White) all getting LOTS of time right now, but they’re still INEXPERIENCED. They’ll learn, and so will the Bucs. No guarantee that they’re all starter-material. Our DEPTH sucks & all we seem to be doing is waiting for certain veterans to get healthy. HOPEFULLY what we’re putting on the field can tread water long enough until the vets get back.
October 19th, 2022 at 5:48 pm
I’ll repeat it: this is that lukewarm, meek personality of the HC imprinting on the team. If there were some zeal, some more risk it for the biscuit fire, the team would be like “Coach is just playing coy.” But all they see is a weak, mechanical and repetitive offensive game plan being called and getting nowhere. That feeling is called “demoralizing”. To know you’re going to play 60 minutes over 2½ hours, and your coach isn’t going to make any major adjustments because he’s coaching scared. That feeling makes you want to puke and revolt. No one wants to play on a team like that. Everyone wants to go fight and die for Brady as a play caller. Am I making myself clear?
October 19th, 2022 at 6:10 pm
Agree with Chris Apple here. This yr plyers losses are greater than most figured. It was the team Chemistry they had. I also blame Licht for not getting us a couple of quality line replacements on both sides. And..it looks like Randolph and Hicks are taking up where Sweezy left off. Getting their money for nothin and their chicks for free.
October 19th, 2022 at 6:15 pm
I’m a buccaneers fan who live in pensilvania, if any buccaneers fan
Want to star a $ collection to put a few billboards in Tampa Bay
” Fire TODD BOWLES ” I will be the first one to make a contribution
Otherwise we WILL be looking at least 2 or 3 years with this loser
until he get fire 🔥🔥!!
October 20th, 2022 at 7:56 am
Suh is a first ballot HOF guy that is no longer with the team too. No doubt all of these guys meant a lot to the team and are not replaceable.