Impotent Offense
October 26th, 2014
A divide is starting in the Bucs’ locker room. Joe can sense it being there. He can hear it in the words of players. He can see it on faces.
Two weeks ago, after Joe Flacco and the Crows alley-stomped the Bucs, the defensive line as a whole threw their hands up in the air and all but asked, “What do you want us to do? Flacco had unloaded the ball before we were in our third step.”
Today, it was the offense that was frustrated, but the defense was seething. The defense did its job. They held the Vikings to 13 points. In today’s NFL, if you hold an opponent to 13 points in regulation, you should win.
The Bucs did not, losing in overtime, because the offense hibernated for three quarters.
In part, defensive players are as tired of the offensive mantra of “Start fast” as the fans. Here is just how fast the Bucs’ offense started today.
During their first possession the Bucs had three first downs and the offense looked as crisp as it had all year. But it came to a screeching halt when Mike Glennon rolled right and tried to force a pass down the right sideline where Mike Evans was completely covered (after Glennon didn’t throw it when Evans was open). It was picked.
On the second possession, the Bucs got one first down but the drive stalled at midfield.
The next five possessions were 3-and-outs. The next time the Bucs had a first down was 6:29 of the third quarter when Glennon hit Austin Seferian-Jenkins for a for a nine-yard gain.
Starting fast? Hardly.
You know what this smells like to Joe? It smells like Raheem Morris’ awful gameplans. The difference is Bucs coach Lovie Smith has a significantly bigger payroll than Morris ever did.
October 26th, 2014 at 6:12 pm
Terrible Playcalling
No Protection & Penalties from Oline
No Running Game
QB not mobile, uncertain
Recievers….no speed, no separation….drops
We start slow because of our constant failure on 1st down running plays..
Joe…if you can….please give us a stat on our first down runs….
We are constantly 3rd & long every week
We start to gain yards when we abandon the run…..every game….
October 26th, 2014 at 6:19 pm
Sorry Joe, not buying that there’s a division in the locker room. Until I see it on the field, that’s bull crap. The fact is, we lose the guy in charge of running the offense in Tedford, and then people why we are struggling on offense? Really? And dont give me that “bring in an experienced OC” crap, which one in there right mind would want to take the job without having any time to implement their play book? Yea and put a black smear on their resume? not going to happen. But hey, I guess you need someone to blame. The only silver lining is that all of this will put us in prime position to draft a potential face of the franchise QB. That is something this team sorely needs, at least from a directional standpoint.
October 26th, 2014 at 6:20 pm
Firing lovie might be the only thing to bring the team together
October 26th, 2014 at 6:20 pm
Yes, yes, yes. Playcalling was ridiculous…again! They want a fast start but they continue to run on 1st and 2nd downs, gaining for the most part, nothing. They passed on 1st (Evans drop) but play was there. Glennon made a poor decision on the rollout but could gave run for 10 yards easy so the pass play call was correct.
In the 4th Qtr, they passed first. What happened? Moved the ball on 3 drives. If the downfield pass is not open, check down to the RBs. It worked with Rainey 3-4 times. Hell, Montana to Craig did it like 90 times one year. Manning, Brady all do it. They pass first, run it second. Bucs would succeed with this type of offense. Glennon can easily handle it. O-Line just has to play better with NO holding calls!
October 26th, 2014 at 6:23 pm
Why doesn’t someone just take the offense from one of the madden teams. All the players could play it at home daily and would know it by heart. Then it would be second nature
October 26th, 2014 at 6:23 pm
On Buccaneers.com they just posted the press conference of Lovie talking about the loss to the Ravens….. Can this team do anything right?
October 26th, 2014 at 6:23 pm
And that has nothing to do with dissing Glennon, it speaks more towards the QB prospects in this draft. If I felt like none of these prospects could be better than Glennon in the long run, than I would say stick with Glennon. But thats simply not the case.
October 26th, 2014 at 6:23 pm
I wanna know why we hadn’t done crap on offense all day and suddenly after we finally score everbody is hugging and kissing on the side line with 2 minutes left on the clock….we all know the rest. …Typical f#cking f#cs football…….we suck. We need a whole organization/player over haul……EVERYBODY SUCKS. ( with the excection of LVD) even McCoy is freaking over rated…now we are stuc with him for the next 5 to 7 years…way to go bucs…
October 26th, 2014 at 6:32 pm
It’s hard to believe the Bucs offenses were never this bad with freeman at qb. And I don’t even like freeman, he was frustrating to watch, so inconsistent. Glennon is at least consistent, consistently bad. His garbage time touchdowns will not save his ass when we continue to lose week after week.
Try to spin this on the defense all you want but everyone knows our defense is crap. This offense needs to do more than nothing for 3/4 of the game.
October 26th, 2014 at 6:32 pm
I can’t wait to hear Lovie get snarky with a media member again this week when someone asks him a very relevant question because he’s earned it. You lose your OC before the first game but you’re just going to ride it out for the whole season and hope for the best. Your defense can’t stop someone when it matters and outside of this game when it doesn’t matter. You’re lucky to have 1 win, if the offense didn’t score with like 10 seconds left on the clock against Pit it’s highly likely you blow that game too. SMH
October 26th, 2014 at 6:33 pm
Even if you hold them to 13 points but you have the lead when the game is almost over and have the other team in their own end of the field. Who should hold them there? Who did not close the game out? Defense need not throw stones.
October 26th, 2014 at 6:36 pm
No QB = NO Offense
Draft Winston and Sign Saint Ritchie
October 26th, 2014 at 6:37 pm
So let’s get this straight Tru, everyone knows this defense is bad so they get a pass even though they are being run by 2 previous successful defensive head coaches with the likes of McCoy and David patrolling the field? The side of the ball that lost it’s main piece in Tedford, which is now being run by a 34 year old coach with no history of success play calling on any level and playing with the “2nd string future” QB is the problem? Makes sense.
October 26th, 2014 at 6:40 pm
And this is exactly the type of offense you would get with Freeman half the time. Do nothing for 3 quarters then do just enough to give the defense the lead to blow so that the fault never came back to you. Every freemanite would talk about how you had the lead in the 4th but the defense gave it up.
October 26th, 2014 at 6:41 pm
@Tmaxcon
I’m a huge Noles fan and as much as I would like to have a QB that’s great on the field, I don’t think I would want what he brings off the field.
October 26th, 2014 at 6:41 pm
When play calling sucks then the offense will have no choice but to suck..
October 26th, 2014 at 6:49 pm
Please don’t talk about Tedford as if he’s a brilliant OC. He’s completely unproven, had never called an NFL play
Lovie has had months to fix the offense and has done absolutely nothing
October 26th, 2014 at 6:52 pm
From my seats 10 rows up in the N end zone I seen the line opening NO gaps for the running backs. The mussel hampster would just run into the backs of his O line just about every one of his carries. Rainey on the other hand would divert when there was nothing there. At least he did try considering there were NO gaps
October 26th, 2014 at 6:57 pm
not even worth my time to comment on this suck ass team
October 26th, 2014 at 7:02 pm
This mess is on Lovie. He had the chance to hire an Offensive Consultant during the bye week and didn’t. The group making the offensive game plans and play calls hasn’t a clue what they are doing. This is not an OJT type of job. The QB coach is way over his head. Lovie’s job is to make both the players and coaches successful by giving them the benefit of seasoned experience in coaching. His lack of judgment is telling.
October 26th, 2014 at 7:12 pm
Not so fast my friend….This is also on the D for allowing the vikes to come back….
October 26th, 2014 at 8:40 pm
This team is garbage. Total garbage besides David and I feel terrible for him and the fact that his talents are being wasted on this team. Imagine him playing for a good team? And I don’t buy that losing Tedford is killing our offense. We have sucked at play calling since Raheem was coach. Run, run, pass. Run, run, pass. Reverse, run. Dumbest shit ever and we are forever on 3rd and long. And our receivers are never open, never creating space. I watch other teams and wonder how in the world they always find a receiver open and we never can. Shit team, shit management, shit organization from top down.
October 26th, 2014 at 8:50 pm
What do we expect on offense when the Offensive coordinaotr is a guy who should be the QB coach and the actual OC has been out of the picture since early August. When it was obvious that Tedford was going to be an issue L&L (Licht and Lovie) should have brought in an advisor like Kevin Gilbride or Chan Gailey to help give this floundering offense some direction. I know that the Butch Davis advisor thing with Schaino was not a big success but hell his input probably did not harm the Bucs while a team being coached by a guy whose resume as an OC is going 1-11 at Conference USA’s Southern Miss (a team the Willie Taggert’s rebuilding USF squad could probably dismantle) is not going to have any success, what else did we expect when Tedford took the leave of absense?????
October 26th, 2014 at 10:32 pm
Schiano’s team at least had more fight and didn’t get thumped like the ravens game. Go bucks but I’mstarting to feel like a browns fan!
October 27th, 2014 at 4:17 am
The defense sucked as much if not more than the offense. Applauding the defense for only giving up 13 points sounds good until you realize that this defense, and our $100 million dollar man, went up against a rookie quarterback, the 32nd ranked offensive line, two rookie lineman, an offense that has given up the 2nd most interceptions on the year, no Adrian Peterson, 29th ranked offense overall, and one of the worst receiving cores in the league with their top ranked receiver ranked 36th in the league. This is an offense that we should have dominated.
Instead we had one sack, zero turnovers, and let them score 13 points. No, this defense did not do its job at all. We suck all around. Badly.
October 27th, 2014 at 6:30 am
FINISH FINISH FINISH the freaking game….then go celebrate in the looker room.
October 27th, 2014 at 6:34 am
We looked like a bunch of