“I Never Really Go Into A Game Saying, ‘We’re Going To Pound The Rock’”
December 22nd, 2023
Bucs offensive coordinator Dave Canales.
After Sunday’s thrilling win over the Packers, Joe is confident one reason Bucs fans hit the ceiling in celebration is because the game felt like the first time all year the Bucs opened up the offense for 60 minutes.
More so than against the Texans.
Joe joked Sunday on Twitter that it seemed as if Bucco Bruce Arians was dialed into offensive coordinator Dave Canales’ headset.
Two players told Joe after the game the Bucs’ gameplan was to pound the ball on Green Bay. But the passing lanes were so open that the Bucs flipped their focus. So Joe asked Canales yesterday what players may have influenced him to put the ball in the air or whether he changed the focus without any prodding.
Canales sort of pushed back on Joe’s question. He said he’s never entered into a game with a singular focus. Rather, he wants to take what defenses give him.
“I never really go into a game saying, ‘We’re going to pound the rock,’ or saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to spread it out and rip them,'” Canales said. “I try to go into the game and say, ‘What are they giving us today.’
“This is going back to Pete [Carroll] – the way that he trained me. We were always known as a running team – playing good defense and a running team. But he was never telling our coordinators, ‘Hey, you’ve got to establish the run.’ That was never his message. His message was, ‘I don’t care about that. Score points. Take what they’re giving you.’ The guys I respect around the league, that’s what they do.
“If it’s a day where we’re moving them up front and the [running] backs aren’t getting tackled and we’re getting six and seven [yards per carry] early, it’s going to be a good running day. If It’s a day where their defense is a little bit off in their coverages and guys are getting open and the quarterback is in rhythm and our protection looks great, we can go attack them in the pass game and get yards and points. I try to approach it that way. I’m glad the guys were fired up about trying to get after it in the run game. That’s the attitude we want.”
Joe gets this, understands this and welcomes this. It’s what Joe has always said, “Whatever works. Keep doing what works until a defense shows it can stop you.”
Still, Joe thought the answer from Canales was odd. All season long Canales has spoken about running the ball and that you have to sometimes be stubborn about running if the run isn’t working.
And just last week Canales said about passing a lot, “I wanted to show our group: I’m not going to quit on the run game. I’m not going to just fold it up, give up and start throwing the ball around the yard. That’s not who I am, that’s not where I come from.”
Joe is not saying Canales is the second coming of Woody Hayes, just that Joe thought it was interesting that the very first game after Canales vowed to stick with the run happened to be the game where the Bucs’ offense was the most diverse — and hammered a team in one of the toughest December venues in the league.
December 22nd, 2023 at 9:06 am
It would seem like the best offense strategy is to keep the defense off balance. Nothing wrong with throwing on 1st and 2nd down if it sets up the run in later series. Don’t think any of this is rocket science. A stubborn Woody Hayes offense that leaves a lot of 3rd and 4’s is foolish when Bucs have top flight receivers like Godwin and Evans. Getting White involved in passing game via “long handoffs” also seems like a winning strategy. This team looks best if mix is 60% pass, 40% run. Gotta believe that by now Canales knows this.
December 22nd, 2023 at 9:11 am
As the Bucs were going through their 1-6 losing spell, just about everyone was ready to make Bowles, Canales & Mayfield walk the plank. Very little was going right it seemed, and the ‘obvious’ reason to most was because the coaches & QB were dogmeat.
Fast forward to our ensuing 3-game win streak & LOTS of true-blue fans (?) show up saying ‘See, I told ya so; I KNEW the Bucs were gonna salvage this season’. Ya right; if you’ve been a JBF regular your archived comments probably say differently. Props to Ira BTW for being one of the few who has been consistent in his evaluations of how we’ve been doing & where we’re likely headed. Nice job Sage.
Reality IMO is that Bowles, Canales, Mayfield & most of our players have all improved (grown?) throughout the season. Not always pretty, consistent improvement, but improvement nonetheless. Where that’ll take us from here on out THIS season is anyone’s guess, but it sure is nice to see.
December 22nd, 2023 at 9:12 am
I think a bigger difference is team have dropping their safeties into coverage, confident that we STILL couldn’t run on them (and they were right for much of the season) It appears NOW they can’t do that anymore
December 22nd, 2023 at 9:17 am
I agree that you take what the defense gives you but at a certain point you still need to be able to impose your will over them no matter what the defense gives you. that could be run game or pass.
December 22nd, 2023 at 9:45 am
Coaches could easily transition to poltiics
Canales is CLEARLY lying. “not giving up on the run” is the same as – we will run it even when the defense is not giving us it
.
NO DIFFERENCE
December 22nd, 2023 at 9:53 am
As I stated all year long. BAKER gives us the best chance to win and with the right coaching and time he can be a top 10 QB. As far as R. WHITE goes, he’s become the weapon I predicted. It’s been a tough year to be a true Buc fan on this site! I am personally excited and happy to see the Bucs having any chance to get into the playoffs! Not a fan of Bowels but still hoping for the best.
December 22nd, 2023 at 9:56 am
Whatever the Bucs do, DO NOT DO what Leftwich did last year!!!
December 22nd, 2023 at 10:05 am
Hey Tony Marks, NO! That would be. If we do not win it is because the NFL game is rigged against us, If we can’t run, it is because the NFL referees are not seeing the penalties on the field, if we can’t pass, it is because those same NFL referees don’t like our team and are not calling pass Interference when we are trying to pass the ball.. We can all agree that we need to run, pass, block, tackle, kick, and fight to be able to win in the NFL. Take what they give you that you can exploit to score points, and take away the ball, and stop them from scoring more points…
December 22nd, 2023 at 10:11 am
Strange..
Seems like just about every thing coming out of one Buc since training camp was “ run” “ establish the run” “we’re gonna be a run first team” blah blah blah.
This whole staff pretty much says whatever, whenever. True or not. They’ll all have jobs in the media when this gig is up.
December 22nd, 2023 at 10:15 am
The perception of many Bucs’ fans is that the team threw the ball more when, in fact, they were about as “balanced” as they have been all season. They threw the ball exactly one more time than they ran it against Green Bay.
December 22nd, 2023 at 10:30 am
Bucs have played much better on the O-Line since Aaron Stinnie became a starter. Ith improvement on the 0-line led to an improvement in the run game, which in turn opened up the passing game which has led to some victories. John Madden was often in disagreement with Al Davis who insisted you build a team through your secondary. Madden has always insisted the O-line is wher games are won or lost. Wirfs and Stinnie have played very well this season. Mauch has improved. The line is almost there and their play throughout the rest of the season will go a long way in determining the Bucs immediate future.
December 22nd, 2023 at 10:39 am
This offense and OC is limited with this trash coach and average inconsistent qb. I am all about wining the super bowl. We went though this with Toilet Bowl & Ryan Fitzpatrick when they 10-6 but they went 5-11 following year.
Baker is another Fitzpatrick collecting paycheck as starter until he hits the TV shows.
December 22nd, 2023 at 10:45 am
Toilet Bowl will repeat the same poor results as his coaching with Jets. The only difference is that he replaced Fitzpatrick with Baker.
Toilet Bowl thinks qb’s such as Fitzpatrick and Baker can be converted to the super bowl qb’s. As a result, he lost his coaching with Jet’s and he will be replaced the same way with Bucs.
December 22nd, 2023 at 10:59 am
There’s a surprise – David with his pie hole open and BS flowing out.
Kinda reminds me of our old pal Realist…maybe they’re related?
December 22nd, 2023 at 11:04 am
I think the bucs offense did very well last Sunday kudos to them. I also believe it was because the Packers D was awful. We threw for under 150 yrs the week before. Jaguars D is ranked below Packers and the buccaneers. So the offense will have to win this game. Can the offense produce two games in a row for the first time this season.
December 22nd, 2023 at 11:22 am
Beej … ‘I think a bigger difference is team have dropping their safeties into coverage, confident that we STILL couldn’t run on them (and they were right for much of the season) It appears NOW they can’t do that anymore’.
That’s most likely true Beej, but I think a bigger factor is the quality of our opponents. Six of our 7 losses have been against teams with winning records … and pretty good defenses. Most of them were able to rush 3 or 4 and stifle our running game, leaving sufficient defenders to keep our passing game in-check.
Lesser opponents didn’t have that luxury, and we were able to run the ball & control the tempo of the game to a degree. In our 7 wins we’ve run the ball over 49% of the plays (including sacks as passing plays). In our 7 losses we’ve only been able to run it on slightly less than 34% of our plays … a huge difference. Implies that Baker won’t win many games solely with his arm, but given decent run-game support he can do quite well. I think the Browns’ fans found out the same thing.
December 22nd, 2023 at 11:49 am
This is just psychobabble. Anyone who can read can see we are Super Bowl Bound with Top Coach and MVP QB.
December 22nd, 2023 at 12:08 pm
Hopefully For the Bucs sake for the near future, The Glazier Boys are behind the scenes working on TB replacement….
The Saints and Falcons will be frantically working this off season to become consistent contenders and if the Bucs stay status quo, then they will be working towards 3rd best in the division….
As nice as it is to think of the Bucs as 3 straight NFCS Champs, It has largely been because of the dreadful state of the other teams the past few years…
DON’T LET THE SAINTS AND FALONS GET TO WHERE THEY DOMINATE THE BUCS FOR MANY YEARS TO COME!
December 22nd, 2023 at 12:31 pm
David, you’re simply not a very good troll. We have won the super bowl with a journeyman and a goat. Quite a few other teams have one super bowls with journeymen. By some definition, Baker is a journeyman. The difference with him is, whether or not it was right at the time, he’s a number one overall draft pick quarterback. He actually had some success with an absolute dumpster fire of a team. Then he tried to play through injury which was both on him and the team. Then he jumped around to a couple of QB for hire situations and has now landed here. A team, just a couple years removed from the super bowl that still has a lot of those parts. I’m not our head coaches biggest fan either. But we are winning, which really seems to make you angry. You offer nothing to the conversation ever with the exception of whining and b!tching and moaning about everything. Come up with some new material.
December 22nd, 2023 at 12:43 pm
David is related to The Bucco Realisto.
December 22nd, 2023 at 12:50 pm
All this about last Sunday was a big game, it was in some ways, but to me the Jags are the biggest game. The pack had a team that was under .500 with a first year starter in Love. The Jag are over .500 , just loss a game and also has a darn good defense who DC came from Tampa. So this is my big game
December 22nd, 2023 at 1:01 pm
If we beat the Jags the modified response from MPTF/et al will be: “They didn’t have their starting qb”
December 22nd, 2023 at 1:29 pm
Bakefield will score 40 plus v the Jags. They are Cannon Fodder v this Super Bowles team.
December 22nd, 2023 at 1:36 pm
Mixed message nonsense from Canales. Less respect.
He has said he wants to run.
He told us all these losses were due to the Bucs learning his scheme and very soon, (14 games in) his running scheme would pay off and we would reap the rewards.
Now suddenly he says we are not a running team?
WTF with this dude ?
I guess he will never script plays like some of the greats.
December 22nd, 2023 at 1:41 pm
Dave Canales: “I never really go into a game saying, ‘We’re going to pound the rock’
Also Dave Canales: *Keeps wasting first and second down running between the tackles aka POUNDING THE ROCK to nowhere like a dum as*
Do our coaches really think we’re stupid and should believe everything they say? 🥴
December 22nd, 2023 at 2:41 pm
Green Bay’s secondary and linebackers were completely lost out there, so we slung the rock around.
Even if the run isn’t accomplishing a lot though, you still have to make attempts at running the ball. You can’t play one dimensional football in the NFL. The defenses are too good if you lock into one thing.
December 22nd, 2023 at 3:11 pm
I’ve mostly defended Canales all year for a reason. He’s nowhere nearly as predictable as Leftwich – and while he still tends to do much running in predictable situations, he does use playaction and mixes things up just enough to keep defense off balance.
The issue with Canales, for the most part, has been Baker Mayfield, who has been missing guys all year, and checking it down, even when he’s had guys wide open down the field. With that said, to slightly defend Baker, he’s been told by Todd Bowles that a QB’s top job isn’t to score points, but to protect the ball, and that could be why Baker has been so conservative for most of the year – although it wouldn’t explain why he’s so inaccurate.
For Canales, this last game, with Baker getting hot, I think Canales just stuck with what was working, where as in previous games you’d have Godwin running open all over the place, and Baker was checking it down for 1 yard, in the Packers game that was turning into 20 yard completions.
Also, for the record, I did not like this hire – Canales had to win me over, and he’s done so – and I was saying that before the Packers game.
December 22nd, 2023 at 3:53 pm
Baker fans you better hope somehow Toilet Bowl is back next year. The trash will find its way around to another trash. There will be no Baker around without the Toilet Bowl next week. A new coach will not gamble his future with the trash Baker.
December 22nd, 2023 at 4:03 pm
This offense with the Toilet Bowl and Baker haven’t done anything at 7-7. They’ve beat three crappy teams with zero wins against winning teams. Even if they win two more against bad teams, do we really think they’ll win a playoff game?
December 22nd, 2023 at 5:20 pm
David, you’re simply not a very good troll. We have won the super bowl with a journeyman and a goat. Quite a few other teams have one super bowls with journeymen. By some definition, Baker is a journeyman. The difference with him is, whether or not it was right at the time, he’s a number one overall draft pick quarterback. He actually had some success with an absolute dumpster fire of a team. Then he tried to play through injury which was both on him and the team. Then he jumped around to a couple of QB for hire situations and has now landed here. A team, just a couple years removed from the super bowl that still has a lot of those parts. I’m not our head coaches biggest fan either. But we are winning, which really seems to make you angry. You offer nothing to the conversation ever with the exception of whining and b!tching and moaning about everything. Come up with some new material.
December 22nd, 2023 at 6:12 pm
He all but beat the Texans, he all but beat the Colts, he all but beat the Falcons in the first game, but one man doesn’t win or lose games
December 22nd, 2023 at 9:00 pm
Trash baker has had a turnover in 5 of last 6 games and he hasn’t have back to back multi touch downs. That is why he is a trash.
December 22nd, 2023 at 9:33 pm
Isn’t it about time for you to create a new name?
December 22nd, 2023 at 10:12 pm
Ok. He is not a trash. He is a turd. Why ? Baker had been terrible prior to Green Bay game when they won due to Toilet Bowl solid defensive plays.
December 22nd, 2023 at 11:10 pm
Yea but it’s not like the offense in the packers game was suddenly lopsided or abandoned the run:
28 pass attempts
27 rushing attempts
December 23rd, 2023 at 3:31 am
unbelievable – they were very heavy pass all day, the run ratio only caught up at the end of the game when they were running out the clock.