A Todd Bowles Kind Of WIn
September 10th, 2023
Winning 1990s football is back.
Try to tell Joe this wasn’t a defensive coordinator’s wet dream?
The Bucs, led by a head coach who is one of the game’s best defensive coordinators, played physical football, opportunistic football. When the defense bent, someone stepped up to make a big play, forced a turnover, kicked a long field goal, and pulled out a win on the road in a raucous dome.
The quarterback was horrid at times. The run game sucked most of the time. Pretty doesn’t win games, ugly does. Hard work. Scrappy. Grimy. Timely.
Joe and fellow Bucs fans became conditioned to a high-powered offense where the greatest of all time made long throws to Mike Evans and Chris Godwin and Antonio Brown and Rob Gronkowski look routine. Drama! Entertainment!
Now? This is a far different team. The Bucs, if they win games, will win most like they did today. Tough defense. Timely plays. Run the ball (to nowhere). Long field goals. Keep it close and win at the end.
It’s not pretty football. Not pretty at all. But it was effective enough to get that all-important first win in Week 1.
Bowles Ball.
September 10th, 2023 at 5:20 pm
I’ll take it.
Remember, go ugly early.
…because you don’t want to go ugly late.
September 10th, 2023 at 5:21 pm
It was some kind of ugly, A LOT!
Can’t expect beauty from 1st time OC, new playbook, new qb trying to start to build chemistry… SO ugly was expected…
Each game needs to show growth and improvement and by mid-season the team should have the playbook down… IF it is still ugly THEN, the Bucs will be DONE!
September 10th, 2023 at 5:26 pm
Only negative I saw was Baker Mayfield today. Coach was aggressive and made adjustments. Thought Canelas called a good game. Baker missed a lot of gimme throws in the first half.
September 10th, 2023 at 5:27 pm
They don’t ask “how?”.
Only “how many?”.
September 10th, 2023 at 5:28 pm
Boys are Rock’n that plane back to Tampa!
September 10th, 2023 at 5:29 pm
Let’s hope we get 2nd half Baker for most of the season, and not first half Baker.
Still not sold on our run game, though I did see a much more creative scheme. O-line needs to improve it’s blocking (pass and run).
Also, less zone defense please.
September 10th, 2023 at 5:30 pm
Still looking at 6-7 wins
Minn gave us the game.
ALways take the ugly win over an L
But this team is bad. Real bad.
They won’t be getting 3 TO’s a game and an offisdes on a FG every game.
Bad football. Worse for Minn
September 10th, 2023 at 5:30 pm
“The Bucs, if they win games, will win most like they did today. Tough defense. Timely plays. Run the ball (to nowhere). Long field goals. Keep it close and win at the end.”
That doesn’t sound like a Super Bowl winning formula Joe 😂
September 10th, 2023 at 5:31 pm
Would be great if we had a dominant run game.
Without, it won’t hold up.
September 10th, 2023 at 5:31 pm
ANY WIN is pretty to me! But speaking of pretty and entertaining…how about a QB that’s not a statue who has lost his nerve at taking hits.
Mayfield kept plays alive, he played with heart and motivation and he even had moves we haven’t seen in Tampa…the kind they see every week in KC..with the Mahomes like rescue of a sack or loss with that pushed flick to the RB to save the play.
This team is plenty exciting enough and certainly entertaining enough for me.
September 10th, 2023 at 5:31 pm
Has anyone asked Bowles why this has become a zone team and went away from man? Why do the Bucs have those expensive corners if you’re just going to sit back in soft zone (and yes, you can blitz and still play a soft zone).
I really did understand in 2021, with all the injuries at corner, switching up the scheme as it’s difficult to pull guys off the street and ask them to cover guys in man – but you got two very expensive corners, and they’re playing 12 yards off the LOS and 90% of the game they’re just standing around. It doesn’t make a ton of sense.
Not that I’m complaining about the W. But if you want money for Winfield, White and Evans, well, replacing those two expensive corners with cheap ones, is how you’d find it. And in a soft zone (not a tight zone like the 02 Bucs) you don’t really need good corners.
September 10th, 2023 at 5:31 pm
Todd Bowles with a big 4th down conversion attempt on his side of the field and calling for a 57YD FG attempt in a tie game. Bowles coaching for his life and not coaching scared. Props to that man!
September 10th, 2023 at 5:32 pm
why certain things went certain ways the media is going to be questioning your head coach todd Bowles when we get back here on 98 rock in Mercedes what’s our ETA allowed to get your destination at 12 minutes
September 10th, 2023 at 5:37 pm
The Bowles game plan worked. Hope it keeps on working. If it does our FG kicker will play a very big role. Kept it close and won on a 57 yard kick, then ran out the clock.
September 10th, 2023 at 5:38 pm
Todd Bowles didn’t coach “not to lose” today, he coached to win and it paid off.
September 10th, 2023 at 5:38 pm
Scrappy and entertaining I’ll take it
September 10th, 2023 at 5:42 pm
When I see words like opportunistic or timely or complimentary…
I think those are disguises of a bad football team.
245 yards of offense without the MN 3 TO’s and offsides on ST’s
This is normally a loss.
Resilient? Clutch? Cream?
September 10th, 2023 at 5:49 pm
How about the offside on the fg. It turned 3 pts in to 7. 4 point swing for the win. Vikes blundered all day long.
September 10th, 2023 at 6:01 pm
It’s not. 🙁
September 10th, 2023 at 6:04 pm
Optimistic, yea some plays that are called opportunistic can construed that way. A pick at the goalline is an opportunistic play and the result of great defense. He stepped up when we needed it most. That’s opportunistic and a great play. Don’t take away from the skill of the player.
September 10th, 2023 at 6:12 pm
Jack Clark, you talking about SuperBowl?! Hate to break it to you but we not making the playoffs. This was a nice game for Bowles and Mayfield, and I’ve given them their props for this ONE game. Bowles proved he can coach to win and Baker proved he can still play. Neither one of this means we should make the playoffs. They both got to sho they can do it for 17 games
September 10th, 2023 at 6:49 pm
Wow, Joe… You can put “wet dream” in the title and then block some of the more mild stuff I have said over the years!?!
I know I know you’re excited, it was a good win. 😂
September 10th, 2023 at 6:49 pm
I see a lot of fans giving kudos here & kudos there, but no one’s given kudos to the Vikings yet. They’re a very good team & will win more games than they lose this year. Their defense is improved IMO over what it was last year, and their offense moved the ball extremely well.
Our defense matched up well against them today I thought. Still, Cousins moved the team well & if not for 3 turnovers they would’ve won. IOW, we played hard-nosed football against a tough team, in their house, and came away with the win. Now let’s take care of the Bears, in our house, 1 week from now.
September 10th, 2023 at 6:52 pm
Buc football has always been an ar$e-kicking defense. They annihilated Patrick Mahommes. TB12 didn’t win that game. The Bucs’ Hall of Fame defense beat up the Raiders.
Focus on growing and keeping a great, young defense.
September 10th, 2023 at 6:52 pm
Buc football has always been an ar$e-kicking defense. They annihilated Patrick Mahommes. TB12 didn’t win that game. The Bucs’ Hall of Fame defense beat up the Raiders.
Focus on growing and keeping a great, young defense.
September 10th, 2023 at 6:54 pm
Munch- I think they played man and zone about equally today. More than half the game Davis was lined up on Jefferson and shut him down. Whenever they went to a zone and Davis wasn’t on him, that’s where Half the passing yards came from it seemed.
I don’t have problem with zone, I just don’t understand why these guys don’t know how to play zone very well. Several times I saw a receiver going across someone’s zone only to have them let them go like they’re handing them off to the next guy in another zone when there’s no one else to hand them off to.
That happened a lot last year as well. If no one is in your zone and the guy is running through it to an open field -you stay with him!
Situational awareness.
I played CB in college and we did mostly zone. It’s not hard, it’s harder than playing man-to-man, but it’s not very hard and these guys are pros. It aggravates me to no end.
September 10th, 2023 at 7:16 pm
The Vikings D line is tough and played a great game. The Bucs O line did enough though and can build some confidence to play better going forward.
September 10th, 2023 at 7:22 pm
David Says:
September 10th, 2023 at 6:54 pm
Munch- I think they played man and zone about equally today.
———-
Would have to see the numbers, but it seemed like on every 3rd down they went to a soft zone.
In general I don’t have an issue with zone, the 2002 Bucs are the best pass defense in NFL history, and they mostly ran zone.
But a big difference between a tight zone, and that garbage zone the Bucs are running where guys are running wide open.
But the issue with this zone defense is that this team was created a man defense, that’s why you have those expensive corners, and like you pointed out, when the Bucs played man, they were at their best today.
Why Bowles plays so much passive soft zone I just don’t get. It very much comes off as being more worried about losing, than trying to win. The 2002 Bucs defense never played not to lose, they played to win the game single handedly. In 2020, the Bucs defense was ultra aggressive, and played to win the game. This defense is not that defense, and what stinks is the only thing holding them back is the coaching – not the personnel.
September 10th, 2023 at 7:54 pm
other than the defense giving up a ton of big chunk yardage plays early and often, the bucs defense played well and got better as the game wore on…
all the big chunk plays got me worried af, and i started to think we might be kinda like the worst team ever…lol…
then everyone began to wake up…
great win……leading into a home game where we should try to manhandle justo fields and his band of merry men
September 10th, 2023 at 8:50 pm
i have to say sorry and give my props to the boys.. the defense was fast!! baker seemed to wake up late in the 2nd qtr. great win go team
September 10th, 2023 at 9:00 pm
For one game I hand it to Todd. Bucs played this one to win. The 4th and short with the game tied. Then the long 57 yard FG instead of the punt. And the Baker to Godwin spectacularity to ice the game. At least for one game, last year’s buffoon of poor decisions was suddenly coherent, sharp and fearless.
Credit where it’s due. Todd and Baker won that one today.
September 11th, 2023 at 3:14 am
That’s exactly what I was thinking during the victory formation. This is a Bowles win. Turnovers, long field goals and that 4th quarter crux point where Todd made the right decision this time going for it in his own territory on 4th down and then having faith in his big leg kicker for a beastly 57 yarder that would’ve been good from 62.
That crowd was loud dude. You gotta give it to the offensive line for not giving up 30 yards in penalties. They looked good enough to win but our run game was weak and maybe Tucker usurps white by the bye week.