“It’s Starting To Hurt Us”
November 1st, 2024
What’s most painful these days? Is it listening to political commentary, waiting for your city to clear hurricane debris or watching the Bucs defense?
Damn, that’s a tough question.
Since Joe views each Bucs game at least three times, Joe will go with the woeful Bucs October defense.
It’s not just one thing wrong defensively. And it can’t just be blamed on injuries, coaches and questionable talent on the field courtesy of salary cap restrictions.
Tackling is one issue and that’s correctable. That was a message today from Bucs inside linebackers coach Larry Foote, who took questions from media about Tampa Bay’s defense.
“It’s hard to get guys down in this league and it’s starting to hurt us a little bit,” Foote said. “So guys are locked in this week, focused, and trying to limit those big plays.”
Foote also referenced the Bucs’ struggles with “vice” tackling.
That’s when two defenders (typically) have an offensive player catch a ball in front of them, and then a “vice” is formed (ideally) with the two defenders converging to squeeze the ballcarrier from opposite sides of him.
The Bucs have been letting offensive players loose for painful gains.
Vice tackling work, sadly, is a good example of spring and summer fundamentals.
It’s November.
Joe is not expecting a rise of the Bucs defense to a special level, but there certainly is enough talent on the field for an average defense.
Better tackling is a good place to start.
November 1st, 2024 at 6:15 pm
What’s the worst defense to win the Super Bowl? Anyone have any idea?
November 1st, 2024 at 6:20 pm
So basic but so true. In basketball if you want to get defensive rebounds you have to box out your man. In football if the Bucs are in these soft zones with players catching the ball in front of them they got to bring the guy down right away. Pretty fundamental concept, nothing to communicate or think about, just put them on the ground.
November 1st, 2024 at 6:23 pm
I’m having trouble deciding if it’s really bad tackling technique or guys getting blocked out of the play to the point where they can’t make the tackle.
November 1st, 2024 at 6:24 pm
City has cleared tons of debris quickly. Props to the sanitation workers! Sadly the defense can’t clear anything. Defense is special, in a bad way. I disagree about the talent level. Vea, LVD, Winfield and McCollum are the Bucs defense. Everyone else are azz clowns just running around on the field and doing very little good. Think they need to dress out in clown suits. KC and SF are going to bury this team.
November 1st, 2024 at 6:30 pm
Annnd Antoine Winfield hurt his foot again today.
November 1st, 2024 at 6:35 pm
This is the saddest excuse for a coaching staff in the nfl I’ve ever seen. Other than Kancey, Izien and whoever plays at corner the rest of these guys won a Super Bowl together. It’s funny Todd defense is what will get him fired.
November 1st, 2024 at 6:49 pm
If Baker stops throwing the ball to the opposing defense we will be fine
November 1st, 2024 at 7:38 pm
How the hell do we get guys hurt during a walk through.
November 1st, 2024 at 8:05 pm
Wtf with Winfield. I agree with Will. How the hell do guys keep getting hurt through walk throughs. This team is the pitts. Please at season end move in a different direction and stop this awful experiment with Bowles. It’s never going to get better than it was and that was simply mediocre.
November 1st, 2024 at 8:13 pm
I”” If Baker stops throwing the ball to the opposing defense we will be fine”
Peter your parents must be so proud
November 1st, 2024 at 8:16 pm
When an NFL defense lets opposing receivers get as open as college teams, they are as crappy as it gets…. all signs of atrocious coaching!
November 1st, 2024 at 8:22 pm
The score was very close. We fought through a few mistakes. Bad ref calls and down 3 starters contributed to the loss. I thought it was a great game and I was proud of several players. We can clean up a few mistakes. You guys don’t seem happy unless you are nit-picking our team.
November 1st, 2024 at 8:43 pm
Atlanta took the air out of the ball…they had a 14 point lead…felt like they knew they could get what they wanted when they needed it…like hold the ball for 6min to pretty much end the game…if the rules dictated that Atlanta needed to score 41to win does anyone really think we could’ve stop them from scoring 17 points in the 2nd half….
November 1st, 2024 at 8:49 pm
I had no idea Dirk Koetter was Boise States current OC….thought he retired.
November 1st, 2024 at 9:00 pm
Kancey and YaYa have promise but for the love of God, go sign an edge rusher that is a known commodity
November 1st, 2024 at 9:00 pm
A below average defensive coordinator as the head coach.
A below average QB.
A below average defense.
Evans and Godwin injured…
Can we start talking about the draft yet?
November 1st, 2024 at 9:17 pm
When no one covers anyone, can’t stop the run, can’t tackle, and it’s “fundamentals” that are being missed, that’s 110% poor coaching. Period.
November 1st, 2024 at 9:22 pm
Interesting stats:
NY Giants and NY Jets lead the NFL in sacks – both teams are a combined 5-12
KC Chiefs rank 25th in sacks- they are undefeated
NFL teams average winning 78% of games when they commit 0 turnovers
November 1st, 2024 at 9:22 pm
Offhand I’d have to say the 2017 Patriots, the team that had the epic comeback against Atlanta. Personnel wise, they were mediocre. They were an exaggeration of a bend-but-don’t-break defense: They surrendered an eye-popping 366 yards per game, which was roughly 12 yards per game better than the 5-11 Bucs team. The defensive metric where they excelled though was not breaking as teams only managed to score 18.5 points per game against them. But that was also the result of them playing games against total weaklings. Overall they were 31st in DVOA. That’s just awful.
November 1st, 2024 at 10:16 pm
I thought Halloween is over but apparently we still have weeks of this defensive horror show. Looking forward to Glazers cleaning house after the season.
November 1st, 2024 at 10:26 pm
Thanks for PassingThru PassingThru. Interesting information. About the tackling practice. Tackles are like plants and animals – no two are alike. Tackling is about want to. I hate it if we have to coach want to. It’s hard to coach want to.
November 1st, 2024 at 10:33 pm
Is it just me or were we saying “if the offense would just be able to run the balll…” Now it’s Nov and the one thing we thought we were good at sucks!
November 1st, 2024 at 11:21 pm
How is it even possible for an NFL defense to allow so many wide open catch & runs to so many offenses week after week?
The Bucs are being gashed to the point of historic record lows and anyone watching the games can plainly see the holes in the so called coverage on the vast majority of the plays.
I don’t recall ever seeing such horrible defenseless play?
So painful to watch. So disappointing the powers that be haven’t provided publicly a real explanation of the disaster we are seeing on defense (it is getting worse) & what they plan to do about it.
November 1st, 2024 at 11:45 pm
By putting my email on your site I guess all junk emails I get is from you.
November 2nd, 2024 at 2:18 am
Camp Cupcake paying dividends. To other teams.
November 2nd, 2024 at 4:16 am
Joe – Great analogy of three painful things.
Larry Foote is correct. We have all watched it too. Sounds like they are working on this.
Crickett Baker – Agreed. We did have bad ref calls, a few errors, and all while being down starters. And the game was still close.
November 2nd, 2024 at 7:30 am
Tackling hasn’t been stellar but the obvious issue with the defense is opponents are wide open for massive chunks of yards. That’s a scheme issue unrelated to fundamentals of tackling. I would rather us quit blitzing and force teams to drive the field consistently, at least they’ll burn more clock.
November 2nd, 2024 at 10:43 am
Bobby M – yeah I think it’s pretty much that.
November 2nd, 2024 at 11:37 am
Agreed, Bucs Def is painful too watch right now. It’s also painful too watch this trade deadline approaching and see the Bucs management show they are not all in on this season and making moves. It’s painful knowing JPP is out there the Bucs are not signing him to boost this edge rush some. It’s painful see the Bucs coaching staff value pressures more than sacks. It’s painful see Sean Tucker get offensive player of the week and then the following week he gets very little touches. It’s painful seeing the NFL rob the Bucs of 6 points because they don’t feel like having pylon cameras a Bucs home game. It’s painful to see Baker throwing interceptions that costs is team wins. It’s painful seeing K.J Britt costing his team games by not being able to cover the middle of the field. It’s painful seeing the Glazers not putting Hardy Nickerson and James Wilder in the Ring of The Honor…. Overall the Bucs are painful to watch right now. Yet im still a fan and I will still be watching this team probably get massacred by the Chiefs on national television with millions of viewers watching. Hope Im wrong, Go Bucs!!
November 2nd, 2024 at 12:13 pm
Team sport. Unfortunately for Todd, like when you’re the President of any country, you take the heat for everybody else’s shortcomings. Todd can’t make tackles, catch passes, pickup blocks, not throw interceptions, not fumble the ball, etc. Unfortunately for Todd, he’s coach of a team that got rid of his best man coverage DB (Carlton Davis) and didn’t bother drafting one. Would also help if we could draft and develop a pass rusher. Where Todd is at fault is calling retarded ass plays that have Anthony Nelson, Diaby, Vita, JTT dropping back into zones… Levonte David covering slots… there’s definitely some user error calls occurring on defense but overall I’m content. Content. Maybe complacent. I’ve dealt with so much worse than this as a Bucs fan, and see so much worse than this around the league. We should have drafted TJ Watt instead of OJ Howard and then maybe Todd can call his defense the way he’s accustomed to and we won’t have to watch career DEs walloping around in coverage.
November 3rd, 2024 at 6:44 am
“Vice tackling work, sadly, is a good example of spring and summer fundamentals.”
Glad you agree Joe! Been saying this for at least two years now. We have soft camps where even in padded practices you see alot of brother-in-law play. As in… I will take it easy on you if you take it easy on me stuff. I used to call it dancing with or leaning on a guy. I would call guys out on it. Tackling/blocking/rushing at full speed will tick some of the lazy guys off.
Thus you get this half @ss, sloppy football! usually clears up way before now but we have some guys on defense who seem to be afraid of hitting people! Add to that we are taking bad angles in games ….because we have practiced at taking bad angles by practicing at brother-in-law speed.
Playing football at anything less than 100% in my opinion is a good way to get yourself hurt as well. Sounds contradictory, but I have seen it happen.
Go Bucs!