Josh “Deep Ball” McCown
September 2nd, 2014
That’s right. Your Tampa Bay Buccaneers gave journeyman Josh McCown the fattest contract he’s ever seen to rifle balls downfield and go toe-to-toe with Drew Brees, Matt Ryan and Cam Newton.
Well, that might be a stretch, but a stat pumped out this week BSPN seems to back up the premise.
In his five starts and eight total games with Chicago in 2013, McCown was a deep-ball expert.
Josh McCown, Tampa Bay Buccaneers: McCown had the league’s third-highest completion percentage (51.2) on passes 15 or more yards downfield last season. Seventeen of his 21 completions on such throws were to Alshon Jeffery or Brandon Marshall.
It was a small sample size, but it was clear McCown knew how to use his big targets. That type of offense, however, really wasn’t shown by the Bucs in preseason. There was little thrown deep and Joe can’t recall any 50-50 ball situations where Mike Evans or Vincent Jackson had a shot to go up and win the football from a defender.
File that under the secret offense that hasn’t been rolled out.
Joe has high hopes for Evans, but Joe’s a little concerned by how much the Bucs will rely on the raw rookie. There’s not much quality depth in the receiving corps, and the Bucs probably need a big season from Evans to be a winning team.
September 2nd, 2014 at 8:05 am
Deep balls…require…deep drops and time to throw….if you catch my drift…Richie
September 2nd, 2014 at 8:21 am
funny how we go from being deep at WR’s a few weeks back to have little experienced depth now. they all look like all stars in underwear football.
Joe was talking about deep in relation to past Bucs years, not deep in reality to the NFL. But Streeter was cut. Murphy is banged up. Owusu is Owusu. Herron is an inconsistent rookie. –Joe
September 2nd, 2014 at 8:24 am
Josh has been in this league a LONG time. Learned a lot. He had big targets in Chicago. Was already with Lovie. He can make it. He’s got great receivers here. I trust him and this offense.
On a side note, I LOVE the way Lovie has changed his demeanor for game week. I watched the press confrence yesterday on the website and he’s buckled down and ready to go. Focused!
Few days left!
September 2nd, 2014 at 8:36 am
Brees, Ryan, Newton, McCown…which one of these do not belong? Hmmm, that’s a tough one!
September 2nd, 2014 at 8:51 am
Well, the preseason hoopla is about over.
Theres only the surprise left now.
The question is are we going to be
pleasantly surprised or unpleasantly surprised?
We find out in a few days.
With McCown, Lovie and all the other trades and moves that have went on I am leaning more towards PLEASANTLY surprised.
At the least it feels a ton better than it did going into the first game for the last few years.
GO BUCS
September 2nd, 2014 at 8:54 am
There’s only a handful of teams with “quality depth” at WR…
Atlanta isn’t one of them. Neither is Carolina. New Orleans? Meh.
Falcons have a lot more depth. Joe assures you they wouldn’t trade Harry Douglas for Louis Murphy. –Joe
September 2nd, 2014 at 8:57 am
That’s news to this Bucs fan, that McCown has now become the cannon.
September 2nd, 2014 at 9:00 am
Pardon me if I disagree, but quarterbacks don’t go “toe-to-toe” with each other….I have gotten the impression that they go up against the other team’s defense……so that is basically Josh’s task, to go “toe-to-toe” with the plotting and planning of the other team’s defensive coordinator and his troops.
September 2nd, 2014 at 9:13 am
Is McCown the lowest paid starting QB in the league, not including QB’s on the rookie wage scale? He’s got to be close.
September 2nd, 2014 at 9:29 am
I’ll bet anyone that McCown finishes in the top half of the league for QB rating, competition percentage, touchdown passes, & yardage….. Any takers? And fyi, that type of performance would be enough to take us to the playoffs
September 2nd, 2014 at 9:35 am
“Falcons have a lot more depth. Joe assures you they wouldn’t trade Harry Douglas for Louis Murphy. –Joe”
——————–
You’re definitely one of those “grass is greener on the other side” guys. Other than last year when Jones was injured, Douglas and Murphy have had similar careers. Nothing impressive.
And after Douglas, there’s Eric Weems, Devin Hester and Courtney Roby. Not exactly “quality depth”. I’ll give you Douglas over Murphy but as Michael Clayton knows…. one good season does not make a good WR. We’ll see what he does this season with White and Jones back. And no TG either anymore which took pressure off their WRs.
Or is their TE depth better than Tampa’s as well?
September 2nd, 2014 at 9:47 am
I didn’t watch a whole lot of Chicago games, but I think I recall their O-line sucking ass like ours does.
Brees, Ryan, Newton, McCown…which one of these do not belong? *ha, Ryan Newton and McCown don’t belong in that sentence lol.
September 2nd, 2014 at 10:12 am
Carolina won the division with a great D and the division’s 3rd best QB. McCown doesn’t have to be Brees. All he has to do is lead an offense ranked 29th or higher… That’s all Cam did.
September 2nd, 2014 at 10:14 am
Everyone is SO FLIPPIN HARD on McCown. They guy has had like what, 30 snaps, during PRESEASON?!
Wait until game 5 0r 6 to reserve judgement.
EVERYONE, and i mean EVERYONE, should be thinking positivily about Sunday at this point.
The final starters haven’t even stepped on the turf yet, let alone show us the playbook.
Lets see how they react Sunday.
Go Bucs!
September 2nd, 2014 at 10:17 am
Disagree that we don’t have quality depth. This looks like the best WR corps we’ve had in a long time, top to bottom. Mostly unproven perhaps, but the ceiling for this group is pretty damn high in my opinion.
September 2nd, 2014 at 10:31 am
DallasBuc Says
“Brees, Ryan, Newton, McCown…which one of these do not belong? Hmmm, that’s a tough one!”
Let me start by saying that I understand your concern. I know that Josh is old. I know that, because of that, he is not a long term solution.
We do need a proper heir. That isn’t Mike Glennon (so far).
That said, Josh McCown is the same age as Drew Brees. Josh McCown is the best QB we’ve had since…Brad Johnson? We hope?
The truth is this. We don’t know if he is or not. We have not seen him play, not really, in the Tedford offense.
The oline is going to play a huge role in his success.
Does he stand up to Newton and Ryan? Age-wise, no. Skill? We don’t know yet.
Does he stand up to Drew Brees? Age-wise yes. Skill? We don’t know yet (though it is doubtful, Drew is among the best).
The big question, as Tom Edrington pointed out above, is how Josh stands up against their defenses. To do that, he must play mistake free, sustain drives and stay healthy. The offensive line is going to affect that.
So, in answer to your question…none of those names do not belong. At least, not as far as we can be sure as yet.
September 2nd, 2014 at 10:33 am
If he can beat out Newton and Ryan, he won’t have to beat out Brees if our defense can…and they have done that plenty of times in the past.
This is going to be a good year if our main players stay healthy.
September 2nd, 2014 at 11:03 am
DallasBuc Says:
September 2nd, 2014 at 8:36 am
Brees, Ryan, Newton, McCown…which one of these do not belong? Hmmm, that’s a tough one!
Uh….. Newton #1 overall pick. Ryan #3 overall pick. Bree’s a trade Gruden & Bruce Allen made no effort to get Bree’s. Having a great QB involves a lot of good luck mixed in with some bad luck. We don’t have a franchise QB because we haven’t sucked bad enough on the right year to have a high enough draft pick the next year when a franchise QB was available in the draft (like most teams). Some of you act like we just don’t want a franchise QB as a franchise. Where do you people want us to get a QB as good as Bree’s,Newton and Ryan? Please tell me?
September 2nd, 2014 at 11:09 am
BuccaneerBonzai – I agree 100% with both of your last post’s.
September 2nd, 2014 at 11:12 am
Lets just hope McCown can last a whole season for the first time in his career. He has only played double digit games once in a season. The odds are likely we will witness the future (MG8) at some point this year.
If you did watch a lot of Bears football down the stretch last year because of your fantasy WR’s were Marshal and Jeffery then you would have seen Josh do some good thing. However he did a lot of ill advised ducking and chucking to a double teamed Jeffry that paid off more times than not. He was impressive in changing plays at the line that would counter the blitzes he faced.
September 2nd, 2014 at 11:57 am
“Falcons have a lot more depth. Joe assures you they wouldn’t trade Harry Douglas for Louis Murphy. –Joe”
We are taking about deep balls and you compared them to chi which has no depth behind Marshall and Jeffery. Even so I wouldn’t trade Murphy and ajs for Douglas and whoever the hell their Te is either
September 2nd, 2014 at 12:27 pm
“Brees, Ryan, Newton, McCown…which one of these do not belong?”
That’s easy: Brees.
September 2nd, 2014 at 1:15 pm
DOesn’t matter if McCown is the 4th best QB in the division. What matters is what he puts on the field THIS YEAR, and I think it’s entirely possible he could outperform Ryan and Newton. Sure, even if he was statistically better and the Bucs win more games than ATL and CAR, their QBs will still be considered better… but it’s about what he puts on the field week in and week out. With a good to great defense, one that creates turnovers, McCown just needs to be consistent and take advantage of opportunities. That equals wins. So Joe’s constant harping on “4th best QB in the division, blah, blah, blah, boo hooo…” is a lot of worthless crap except to the fantasy football crowd.
September 2nd, 2014 at 1:18 pm
McCown is a superb deep throwing QB but Glennon is usually only accurate deep when throwing straight down the field. However, we could have picked QB Carr in the draft, who is also a highly accurate passer deep to all sides of the field. We let the Raiders take him instead and now the Raiders have announced Carr has been named their starting QB for this season. Licht blew the opportunity to get us a true Franchise QB. It is Licht’s only blind spot. He has been awful in picking Franchise QBs in the past. That is how we got stuck with Albatross Glennon. We will be fine with Josh but we will be done for if he goes down.
September 2nd, 2014 at 1:56 pm
Deep balls are coming!!
They have all the pieces in place for it IF the O-Line can give enough time.
That burning question will start to be answered in a few days.
I look for some roll out to deep ball early in the season til the line gets comfortable with each other.
September 2nd, 2014 at 4:05 pm
Owlykat is drunk. How could Licht be awful at picking QB in past drafts when this his first year as GM for any team? … So what your saying is because Licht is supposedly awful at picking QB in past drafts that’s why Dom and Greg got stuck pick Glennon? Makes sense.
September 2nd, 2014 at 9:19 pm
Ok, “Bree’s a trade Gruden & Bruce Allen made no effort to get Bree’s.” First off, Brees signed with the Saints as a free agent in 2006. “That said, Josh McCown is the same age as Drew Brees. Josh McCown is the best QB we’ve had since…Brad Johnson? We hope?” I mean come on, Jeff Garcia was a pretty good QB for us. I saw more potential in Chris Simms than I do in Mike Glennon. I hope I’m wrong. But Bucs fans, let’s stop being sooo damn cynical.