Lavonte David Still Dominant
March 26th, 2023
Lavonte David
Eye-popping stats on Bucs icon Lavonte David from a source Joe likes to throw rocks at.
Regular readers know Joe finds great comedy with the PFF tribe. It’s truly one of the greatest business rackets devised in recent decades.
Quick, let’s go have a bunch of Irish dudes in their dorms — who may have never watched a football game — type reports and calculate stats from broadcast tape and slap grades on players for a handful of shillings each week. Then pass this off as football knowledge and charge saps $100 or more.
It’s one of the great marketing scams. Give NFL writers free subscriptions so they use these same stats when they can’t find what to write about in the offseason. They will indirectly advertise PFF to the unwashed and we’ll sell thousands of subscriptions.
Hey, props to them and props to co-owner Cris Collinsworth for pushing this tripe on national television. Too bad Joe didn’t think of this sooner.
(Fun fact: Joe sat down with a former Bucs and Colts assistant coach at the combine in Indianapolis one cold February night who had a hearty laugh about the PFF tribe’s grades [“I don’t give a sh!t about their G-D grades!”] But he said the PFF tribe contracts to do stats-focused quality control work for some NFL teams, which lessens the workload for assistant coaches.)
Some PFF tribe stats are insightful, Joe believes. For example, missed tackles. The NFL doesn’t track these. Per the PFF tribe, David had only 10 missed tackles last season. That’s absolutely incredible for a linebacker in his early 30s who led his team in tackles.
As a result, the tribe applauded Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht for bringing David back.
Whether [his inexpensive price is due to] a lack of physical decline or just remarkable instincts and football IQ, David is a great value on a one-year flier and could perhaps spend his entire career.
David has missed less than 10% of tackle opportunities in each of the last two seasons and had 57 defensive stops to go along with five pass breakups in 2022. Tampa will not be as good on offense in 2023, but their defense should still cause a lot of problems in a weak NFC South.
Joe isn’t that down on the Bucs offense. Did they lose talent? Of course! Major talent. However, even with that talent, the offense was horrible last season.
Joe is willing to bet that Baker Mayfield whoever is quarterback will be able to match or exceed last year’s production, as the biggest problem with the Bucs offense is gone. And no, Joe’s not talking about Donovan Smith.
As for David, his production in his early 30s at linebacker is nearly on par with what Tom Brady was doing at quarterback in his 40s.
March 26th, 2023 at 11:08 am
Will be interesting how 2023 changes in coaches and players turn out for the Bucs
March 26th, 2023 at 11:23 am
No doubt LD still high production rate in 2022.
It’s exactly what Bowles D calls for from off the ball LB.
On a 1yr deal to likely finish a career in Tampa, can hate it.
But the next guy needs to be identified, with 2023 also a big 2nd contract defining season for White. If he balls out, Bucs looking at a truck load of Glazers cash to keep him. (R.Smith-BAL deal the baseline)
March 26th, 2023 at 11:29 am
So, How many missed tackles did Devin White have?
March 26th, 2023 at 11:38 am
Scotty, you’ll have to pay $100 to find an answer to that question!!
March 26th, 2023 at 11:48 am
Scotty in Fat Antonio Says:
March 26th, 2023 at 11:29 am
So, How many missed tackles did Devin White have?
Lol, was about to type exact same thing
March 26th, 2023 at 11:52 am
All I can find is he’s ‘in the bottom half’
March 26th, 2023 at 11:54 am
Let’s see who we draft and what this new offensive scheme looks like
Before we say they will be better or worse. An effective run game would open up the offense. Draft Oline Dline Safety and ILB
March 26th, 2023 at 11:56 am
Our offens averaged 11 points less than it do the previous year. I attribute those 11 points as follows: 3 Oline, 3 Brady’s decline, 5 Leftwich’s ineptitude. Our Oline will not be as good as it was in 21 but will recover 2 of those lost points. I If Whoever our Starting QB is is average he will replace the Brady deficit as Brady was average, at best last year. And the OC will probably replace at least 4 of those points. The effects of BA’s red pen was apparently understated. Therefore, we should average around 27 points a game. That would mean less time on the field and something to play for, for the defense. It would also make us a top 5 offense. Heads up peeps!! We’re going to be pretty good this year!!
March 26th, 2023 at 11:58 am
Scotty and Beej,
According to pro football focus advanced defense, White had 11. Be interesting to see if some of the misses o QB’s are counted. I am not sure he even laid a finger on Mahomes for example.
March 26th, 2023 at 12:09 pm
If last year we would have averaged even 25 points a game we would have won 10 or 11 games.
March 26th, 2023 at 12:53 pm
Glad to have David back, but we need quality depth. We need to draft an ILB fairly early. Britt is just too slow. I couldn’t tell you much about JJ Russel.
March 26th, 2023 at 2:19 pm
Some of the folks working at Pro football focus don’t know their asses from their elbows. One guy, (I think he was English or Australian) actually tried to make the case that Brady wasn’t a top 10 qb. This was years ago. Agree that some of their info is useful, but I’m a much bigger believer in next gen. I think they use a better approach. Whatever the case, I use either , depending on what suits my argument best, lol. LVD isn’t what he was, but is still quite productive imo. I see the hall of Fame in his future.
March 26th, 2023 at 2:33 pm
Don’t know what to make of this new Buc team. New OC and new QB. One things for sure, if we are gonna run more then we sure as hell need to shore up that O line Bigtime. Take OT Wright with that 1st pick.
March 26th, 2023 at 2:46 pm
LVD needs to figure out how to get Diva White to quit his freelancing, tackle with technique, and maybe even cover a tight end once in a while. Because Bloweszo sure can’t teach Diva anything.
March 26th, 2023 at 3:09 pm
How do you feel about the coach AgAiN Goatfarmer?
March 26th, 2023 at 3:26 pm
How many tackles did Devin White miss last year?
March 26th, 2023 at 4:09 pm
GF, don’t get me started. White apparently doesn’t understand how a 3-4 base defense works. If he’d simply stay in his gap, his tackles would go up exponentially. Instead he relies near totally on his athleticism. Ugg!!
March 26th, 2023 at 4:30 pm
LVD is fine.
I’m curious what the Bucs will do with Devin White.
I wonder if a trade is still possible or if they will extend his contract instead…
March 26th, 2023 at 5:29 pm
The Bucs have parted company with all of it’s older players except LVD….and for very good reason….Look at the list.
Brady
Rudolph
Lenny
D Smith
S Mason
Gabbert
Julio
Bernard
Brate
Hicks
Gholston
Ryan
That’s quite a list and they were replaced by younger FAs or future draft picks
Younger, cheaper and hopefully faster and more athletic. If we can get better that would be fantastic.
March 26th, 2023 at 5:48 pm
TBBF … ‘That’s quite a list and they were replaced by younger FAs or future draft picks. Younger, cheaper and hopefully faster and more athletic.’
I agree, but it’ll be a lot harder replacing some of those older veterans than many seem to think. Of our 9 draft picks, I’ll be surprised if we keep 7, and at least half of those will be nothing but S/Ts & marginal depth. We don’t have any real $$$ to buy quality younger FAs, so chances are pretty good I think that we’ll see some of the ‘seniors’ still around in 2023. For instance, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Gholston & Ryan back with us for starters.
Bucs are now $5.8 mil under the salary CAP with 56 on the roster, but of those we have yet to ‘fund’ LVD, Gaines & O’Connor. At least 16 on that list are new adds, almost all on their first contract (not counting Mayfield, Edmonds & Gaines of course), meaning that probably 40 are pretty sure to make the roster (since they did last year?). Based on that, I could see us adding about 6-7 draft picks plus another 6-7 free agents to our final 53 roster before Game 1. And several of those will have to be starters and key rotational players, especially on defense. Interesting times ahead.
March 26th, 2023 at 6:08 pm
Gholston would be a good re-signing. Hopefully he’ll agree to play for a mill plus incentives.
March 26th, 2023 at 6:16 pm
@ DR
– Nassib
– Gholston
– Senat
– Miller
– Avery
– L. Ryan
Could all return on cheap one year deals after the draft…
March 26th, 2023 at 6:20 pm
* and K. Neal as well…
That is 7. Plus another FA TE and maybe RB.
Plus the 6 draft picks – maybe 7 if you include the kicker we are drafting.
So that should come close to filling out the 53 man roster.
We will probably add another few more free agents in late August after other teams make their final cuts…
March 26th, 2023 at 6:30 pm
PFF write up of Devin late Oct 22 below – it’s what we all see – LVD is light years better – so happy he stayed
Last year was a step back and this year has been a steady decline since White won the NFC Defensive Player of the Month award in September. Coming into the game, Pro Football Focus tagged White with the fourth-highest missed tackle rate (15.3%) among linebackers with at least 377 defensive snaps. His 51.0 coverage grade ranks 24th out of 32 qualifying players and his overall defensive grade of 38.2 is second-worst. Only the New York Giants’ Tae Crowder has a worse overall grade.
OUCH!! The truth hurts….
March 26th, 2023 at 6:34 pm
Trade his Diva behind. Won’t happen though, Bloweszo loves his athleticism and doesn’t mind that he fails to teach the Diva how to improve.
March 26th, 2023 at 7:07 pm
Marine Buc … Had forgotten about Nassib; I agree with you, he’d be a good 1-year re-signing, along with Gholston, Ryan & Neal too. All these newbies will need some adult supervision out on the field.
March 26th, 2023 at 7:35 pm
New blood!!!!!!!!
March 26th, 2023 at 7:44 pm
I do enjoy the fact that you ignore me pointing out your obsesseive repetitive post about the same two topics Goatfarmer.
March 26th, 2023 at 7:48 pm
LVD > Kuechly.
Great Pick!!
March 26th, 2023 at 8:18 pm
As of 2021, PFF provides customized data to all 32 NFL teams, 102 NCAA FBS teams, 7 CFL teams. seems like it’s perhaps a bit more than the joe wants to give credit to, i guess unless it’s favorable to him writing an article and then sure its worth writing about while being sure to proclaim its drivel.
March 26th, 2023 at 9:10 pm
Mike C – Trask is a ooor man’s Mike Glennon and Bloweszo the Coaching Clown is horrible.
There ya go.
March 26th, 2023 at 11:12 pm
Painful read. Step away from the bottle Joe.
March 27th, 2023 at 12:24 am
It’s incredible how far we have come since Sept 8, 2013.
March 27th, 2023 at 1:11 am
Goat quick trivia…
Which QB has the most INTs since 2018?
LOL
March 27th, 2023 at 7:19 am
Look, I agree! Just don’t be so %$$#$% REPETITIVE!
March 27th, 2023 at 12:13 pm
ElioT you are a real hero… smh