Todd Bowles: Chris Godwin Fumbling Is “Something To Work On”
January 11th, 2023
Chris Godwin
After Chris Godwin had the ball punched out of his hands two weeks ago against Carolina after a long gain in Panthers territory, head coach Todd Bowles wasn’t blaming his stud receiver.
Yesterday, the head coach shared a different Godwin fumbling perspective on the Buccaneers Radio Network.
Godwin coughed up the rock again on Sunday, again on a punch-out by a defender. The message from Bowles this time was that it’s on the receiver and it can’t continue.
“I think it’s something we have to work on,” Bowles said. “You know, when you catch a screen and you run up in there. You’re going into traffic, you got people coming at you from all angles, we gotta get two hands on the ball.”
TV cameras caught Godwin after Sunday’s fumble getting coached up by Julio Jones along the Bucs’ sideline.
Joe is not concerned about Godwin, but the fumbling probably is something more than bad luck. Joe is confident Cowboys defensive coordinator Dan Quinn will let his players know that Godwin is especially vulnerable.
January 11th, 2023 at 8:54 am
Godwin fumbled vs the cowboys opening game last year too. Let’s tighten it up Christopher, get the yards ans go down.
January 11th, 2023 at 8:57 am
Chris has always been a little carefree with ball security. It must be showing up on tape and defenders are aggressively attacking one of his many weaknesses.
January 11th, 2023 at 8:57 am
Cowboys 25 Bucs 17. Brady goes to LV.
January 11th, 2023 at 9:17 am
agree – just catch it and get down
January 11th, 2023 at 9:24 am
Smh just catch it and go down so next you can scream that he doesn’t get any YAC or goes down too easily. How about this fix the fumbling issue and continue to play hard.
January 11th, 2023 at 10:09 am
I remember Mike Alstottt going through a fumbling phase. He had a show with the Big Dog and in one of the shows, he was presented a football with a handle taped to it. He took it with good humor and ultimately corrected the problem.
I don’t think we will see any more fumbles from Godwin for a while.
January 11th, 2023 at 10:22 am
The two fumbles were perfect strikes by the defense while Godwin held the ball to his body with both arms. Not too worrried. Maybe teach our defense how to do this.
January 11th, 2023 at 10:34 am
Thanks Jeff…..
January 11th, 2023 at 10:46 am
I don’t disagree that Chris needs to do a better job of hanging onto the ball, but that punch out was just a good play. Period! Give the defender some credit.
January 11th, 2023 at 10:53 am
He has 2 hands in top of the ball is his problem. He needs to place one hand on the bottom of the ball. This should’ve been addressed already, bad coaching.
January 11th, 2023 at 11:12 am
He had two hands on both those balls but the defenders executed perfect ball punches both times. Perhaps he needs to turn his body more to make the top of the ball less accessible to the defenders so they can’t execute those punch moves.
January 11th, 2023 at 12:34 pm
Maybe Coach Julio has the right idea to tuck the ball into the crook of his arm, it does appear that he is leaving air underneath the ball allowing it to be dislodged. The punchouts in each of the last 2 games looked identical.
January 11th, 2023 at 12:56 pm
I don’t think this is anything more than coincidence that it has happened 2 weeks in a row. I’m not losing sleep over it.
January 11th, 2023 at 1:33 pm
Kind of the bi-product of Godwin being the only consistent option over the middle and the target that gets more YAC opportunities on a consistent basis than anybody else on the roster.
January 11th, 2023 at 2:21 pm
When he is in the process of being run down he holds the ball like a fullback does, with a hand on top and one on the bottom of the ball. That is ok for a fullback because he has the vision to see whats in front of him but when you are a WR you see green grass in front of you and holding the ball like that exposes it to get punched out.
The way Julio was showing him is the way a WR should hold it.
January 11th, 2023 at 5:43 pm
I expect to see Cowboy defenders throwing punches at the ball every time Godwin has it in his hands…
January 12th, 2023 at 12:43 am
This last fumble was just a perfect punchout by the Falcons players. Those guys get paid too, and just made a great play. Godwin didn’t suddenly forget how to hold onto the ball.
January 12th, 2023 at 7:18 am
Both Carolina and Falcons fumbles were perfectly timed punches. I don’t know much about the technique of causing fumbles, but given that in BOTH instances Godwin had cross armed to his chest protecting the ball which I don’t believe you could be in a more protective posture outside of simply falling down after the catch, he appeared to do everything right, and yet he still lost it, I’m assuming it’s the perfect strike by the defender and coincidently it happened in back-to-back weeks on similar plays…so now Godwin has a problem? Nah… good thing is it didn’t get in his head after the fact…those coincidental circumstances could’ve cause him to worry about ball security vs. catching the ball first. Godwin will be fine, this is a nothing burger.