Covering Tight End Not A Weakness
October 1st, 2014
Alterraun Verner isn’t buying that the Bucs defense cannot cover tight ends
It’s getting to be an irritating broken record. The Bucs, for reasons unknown, just cannot cover a tight end.
It is as if Bucs defenders think opposing tight ends are active carriers of the Ebola virus. Or that the Bucs will break out into hives if they get close enough to smell a tight end. It is starting to p!ss Joe off.
Once again last Sunday, a tight end, this time Heath Miller, roasted the Bucs as if the Steelers were playing 7-on-7 flag football. It is becoming embarrassing.
Alterraun Verner has other ideas. The stud Bucs corner doesn’t believe covering the tight end is a weakness in the Lovie Smith defense. Verner just believes it is the case of opposing quarterbacks going after the hot hand.
“They just found an open guy,” Verner said. “It just so happens, especially last week, the tight end was hot and they were trying to [get] him the ball. They could have possibly thrown those passes to [Antonio Brown] but they went to the tight end. I wouldn’t say that is a weakness for us. That is just that person has found that type of success.
“We are not going to try to change too much. Just stay the course and plug away and try to get us another win.”
Look, this isn’t rocket science. The reason why quarterbacks keep going to the tight end against the Bucs, and the reason why tight ends are having the hot hand against the Bucs, is that they are running as wild as deer in an Illinois cornfield.
If tight ends weren’t so open, quarterbacks wouldn’t be getting them the ball that much. How come tight ends are always “hot” against Tampa Bay?
The Bucs simply have not demonstrated an ability to stop tight ends. yet. Well, they better hurry. In four days they will face the best tight end in the NFL, Jimmy Graham. Good luck with that hot hand.
October 1st, 2014 at 2:48 pm
The Bucs could play less cover 2, Then there wouldn’t be wide open holes in between the LB’s ,Corners, and Safeties.
It’s easy for Tight Ends to just run their routes,and Catch wide open passes if they’re sitting in the soft spots of our coverage!
We could even try jamming them at the line with or LB’s, or even covering them with a corner every once in a while!
October 1st, 2014 at 2:48 pm
I don’t care what he says. Im starting Graham this weekend
October 1st, 2014 at 2:56 pm
Even in our Super Bowl days, the Tampa Two left the deep middle open. Nothing has changed.
October 1st, 2014 at 2:57 pm
AV was turned in circles lead footed on one play last week…
October 1st, 2014 at 3:00 pm
Here’s what Graham is doing this season…
Avg Per Game:
Targets -11
Recpt – 8
Yrds – 60
TD – .75
These are very pedestrian numbers for him, he’s only as good as that o-line is at keeping Brees upright…
October 1st, 2014 at 3:13 pm
I wouldn’t mind seeing us take the same approach with Graham the Patriots took when they allowed Talib to follow him all over the field. I’d like to think Jonthan Banks could at least slow him down a little.
October 1st, 2014 at 3:14 pm
Stop with the Cover 2 nonsense. Dallas just put the whup on the Saints and Rod Marinelli uses Cover 2 exclusively. And he did it with players that could not even make the Bucs roster. Fix the players, fix the defense!
October 1st, 2014 at 3:19 pm
Lbs need to carry there zones more and stop being so flat footed. Those corner routes Antonio brown got us on, were not leveraged properly by the corners/ safeties. A strong side end should chip the tightend from getting such a free release. Such minimal assignment breakdowns have lead to big plays especially by tightend , but every week we have gotten better! I am confident about this week! Go bucs!
October 1st, 2014 at 3:21 pm
When TE’s play the Bucs they’re like Julie Andrews running free
through a flowered mountain field with not a person within miles.
Jimmy Graham will be singing
“The hills are alive with the sound of touchdowns…”
October 1st, 2014 at 3:24 pm
Of course it’s not a weakness if you opt not to do it at all.
What I’ve noticed is that the Mike, whether it be Foster or Fletcher, bite hard on every play action. The seam is open for tight ends and slot receivers. I think our defensive ends should chip them hard at the line. Aside from last game they weren’t getting any qb pressure anyways.
October 1st, 2014 at 3:24 pm
“It is as if Bucs defenders think opposing tight ends are active carriers of the Ebola virus.”
“they are running as wild as deer in an Illinois cornfield.”
nice work joe. lol
October 1st, 2014 at 3:33 pm
It’s smells like smoke to me. Why not have the saints think we aren’t going to adjust? Everyone can see its a weakness and I expect them to game plan accordingly
October 1st, 2014 at 3:37 pm
Would the real Mark Barron please stand up?
October 1st, 2014 at 3:39 pm
Flat out lie. And our entire secondary sucks. Including av so.far. and banks improved last week. We couldnt stop a college pasing game
October 1st, 2014 at 3:40 pm
Time to try someone else than barron. Sux bc i bad high hopes for him
October 1st, 2014 at 3:46 pm
Ok AnotherJ, coach us up.
If we put a corner on Graham, he’s a big strong fast dude. Which corner do you use. If he breaks the tackle after a catch since they are in one on one, then you are looking at an almost sure TD.
You want to use one of our safeties, great. Which one has shown enough coverage skills lately to do the job.
Coach us up. Please be specific with our players and your schemes.
The real solution is not to bite so hard on play action which is what every single one of our LB’s do.
As far as Graham’s stats are concerned, he looks like a guy who just got a big pay raise with guaranteed money. Ohhh, that’s right, he just did.
October 1st, 2014 at 3:58 pm
The Buc’s big D
is like
an octopus trying to make love to bagpipes
October 1st, 2014 at 3:58 pm
The reason why tight ends and receivers are coming so wide open in the middle is because you cannot come up and lay them out like the old days. These open spots in the cover two have always been there. The one thing that has changed is there is no longer fear of coming across the middle getting knocked out.
October 1st, 2014 at 4:02 pm
Has he looked at any game tapes this year?
October 1st, 2014 at 4:02 pm
Quote
“yah, we passed on Kuechly but we got two for the price of one. Baron and Martin”
Hmnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn
October 1st, 2014 at 4:07 pm
foghead407 Says:
October 1st, 2014 at 3:39 pm
Flat out lie. And our entire secondary sucks. Including av so.far. and banks improved last week. We couldnt stop a college pasing game
__________________________________
The D-line got major pressure last week and the pass coverage still sucked.
Doesn’t that violate some law of physics or something?
October 1st, 2014 at 4:11 pm
Steve Says:
October 1st, 2014 at 3:58 pm
The reason why tight ends and receivers are coming so wide open in the middle is because you cannot come up and lay them out like the old days. These open spots in the cover two have always been there. The one thing that has changed is there is no longer fear of coming across the middle getting knocked out.
______________________________
I agree with this^
Back in the day Lynch would have smoked Graham.
Nowadays our safties have to ask him politely to please
get on the ground.
October 1st, 2014 at 4:15 pm
Ddneast, Yes! The Bucs LB’s bite harder on play action than Rosie O’Donnell on a corn dog.
The secondary is taking much of the heat but the LB play might be the biggest disappointment.
October 1st, 2014 at 4:25 pm
ddneast since you asked, I’d gladly give McDougle, or Wright a try at covering him. Since we’re already thin at CB,and they’ll be busy covering Cooks, Stills, and C Colston,
October 1st, 2014 at 4:30 pm
The key to this defense is to make the offense one dimensional. We dont stop the run well in the first half of games, so the play action is killing us. So if we can shut down the run better in the first half, then our LBS wont get fooled by play action as much. Teams are killing us with the Shotgun-zone read/shotgun-inside zone running play with pullinh guards. Buffalo exposed our defense on those 2 very plays in 3rd preseason game with cj spiller.
October 1st, 2014 at 4:38 pm
Our LB’s are getting sucked in on the play action and leaving huge gaps behind them and in front of the safeties. Having injured safeties doesn’t help either.
October 1st, 2014 at 4:49 pm
October 1st, 2014 at 2:48 pm
The Bucs could play less cover 2, Then there wouldn’t be wide open holes in between the LB’s ,Corners, and Safeties.
It’s easy for Tight Ends to just run their routes,and Catch wide open passes if they’re sitting in the soft spots of our coverage!
We could even try jamming them at the line with or LB’s, or even covering them with a corner every once in a while!
—————-
It has nothing to do with scheme. It has everything to do with the fact that our LBs bite on every play-action pass ever drawn up.
October 1st, 2014 at 4:53 pm
The Bucs will try Nickel and dime packages early and try to have the d line stop the run. This actually works in the cover 2 pretty well and forces passing teams to dump off more then they like. The problem is bend but do not break also let’s them control the clock. Brees might only come away with a field goal but he will use up half a quarter to do it. Huge pressure on the Bucs O with limited time.
October 1st, 2014 at 5:24 pm
mpmalloy, the pass-rush was kinda streaky; got the sacks 1st H, but not a consistent in-your face, knock-down pressure for the whole game.
October 1st, 2014 at 5:29 pm
We havnt looked good in any game. Even last week we looked like a bad team getting good breaks. Show me you can beat the saints and brees on the road then i will have hope once again for this season. Just looking for an excuse to get excited about watching the bucs and talking smack at the bars. The old man steelers giving us the game wasnt it
October 1st, 2014 at 5:32 pm
Sorry Joe., I’m not going to listen to a guy that doesn’t know squat about football. If you would listen to what Mr Brooks said before the season started and what he said again today you might learn something. This defense takes time. See the 1997 Bucs…see last years Cowboys.. It takes time and these are obvious growing pains that are part of the process. Relax.. You have enough on your plate being the self appointed General of the Glennon mob. (At least for 1 more week).
October 1st, 2014 at 5:49 pm
One of the weakness of the cover2 (bend dont break) is that defense players are on the field too long in the course of the game. This still works as long as you have the players to rotate in and out which last week there was much more of that along the defense front and they still had good pressure. Im anxious to see how the rotation front four works again this week.
October 1st, 2014 at 6:01 pm
gatrbuc17 Says:
October 1st, 2014 at 2:48 pm
“I don’t care what he says. Im starting Graham this weekend.”
See I don’t roll that way. I’ve had Brees starting on my team all season long. I benched him for this week and went with Andy Dalton instead.
I also picked up Blount last week, but at the last minute my red and pewter heart made me bench him too. That actually panned out for me though as Blount was basically a no show thanks to our D.
I’m one of those FF players that does separate the reality and fantasy. Reality is much more important. I can’t be happy if Brees puts points up on my team.
That’s just NOT happening.
October 1st, 2014 at 6:56 pm
Someone needs to show this guy the game film… because them idiots are getting toasted.
October 1st, 2014 at 8:47 pm
Verner sucks…. stiff and clueless.
October 1st, 2014 at 9:10 pm
Joe, you act like just the tight ends are getting wide open. Not a single receiver has been covered all year. WR, RB, TE They’re all seeing soft coverage
October 1st, 2014 at 9:13 pm
I’m hoping the light comes on for these guys soon. They’ve been getting progressively better, but are still not comfortable in this scheme. It’s one that takes instincts and awareness. I’ve seen LVD hesitate and miss at least two ints. this season and he’s allowed some big completions but being just a bit out of position.
It’s up to Lovie and Frazier to get these guys reacting instead of guessing out there.
October 1st, 2014 at 9:22 pm
@flmike:
“…These are very pedestrian numbers for him, he’s only as good as that o-line is at keeping Brees upright…”
Those are ‘pedestrian numbers for him’. Unfortunately, I think you just jinxed us! lol Watch Graham have a big game this week.
October 1st, 2014 at 10:41 pm
Well this quote doesn’t exactly inspire confidence:
” … They could have possibly thrown those passes to [Antonio Brown] but they went to the tight end.”
We are going to be fine. This defense will be very good IN TIME. Brooks was on air today saying the same thing.. It takes dedicating time and effort to get this defense (the cover 2, when we use it). Even HOF Brooks and Sapp needed a year or two to settle in and start making plays.
The cowboys are a good present day example. Last year, they looked terrible. This year, looking much better.
Another year of experience in the scheme is starting to payoff.
October 1st, 2014 at 10:45 pm
Hey Alterraun!!! And why was Miller the hot hand last week? Hmmmmmm……. Because you guys cant cover the dam TE. [Wishing physical harm on a Bucs player is a bit over the top, don’t you think? — Joe]
October 1st, 2014 at 11:43 pm
If I hear one more time Mark Barron and Kuechly in the same sentence. If they draft Kuechly we don’t have barron LAVONTE or doug just barron. It was a genius move then, it still is now. Barron isn’t a cover 2 sit back and coverage safety. Anyone judging him excepting him to be is a fool. He was drafted for SCHIANOS system. In which he fit perfectly. Don’t waste your breath saying “we wouldve/couldve taken both linebackers” it was 2012. Nobody drafts aback to back linebackers especially when the secondary is as bad as Tampas was. Stop crying armchair madden gm’s
October 2nd, 2014 at 1:10 am
Actually, Rock Star drafted d tackles back-to-back in 2010 and did the same with d-ends in 2011.
October 2nd, 2014 at 2:50 am
The problem is simply the cover 2 defense ! Cover2 = prevent defense. Who would you least like to fight? Golden gloves champ or Mma champ? Time to take off the gloves!
October 2nd, 2014 at 7:29 am
Delusional…. Clearly he is taking on the personality of his coach
October 2nd, 2014 at 7:55 am
Hey Joe!!! Trust me. I wouldn’t be able to do any more harm on the Bucs than what a TE will do to them. By the way in case you didn’t get it… I mentioned the elevator joke because my name is Ray Rice. Dont take it literal.
October 2nd, 2014 at 8:30 am
It would help if Dane Fletcher and Lavonte David didn’t bite on EVERY SINGLE play action fake.
October 2nd, 2014 at 9:09 am
@passthebuc and my screen is covered in coffee thanks!