Did Lovie Panic?
December 3rd, 2015
Could he see the future?
Normally, on Wednesdays, Joe flips the page to the upcoming game, leaving the most recently-played game in the rearview mirror. Normally.
But this morning, former Bucs defensive lineman and former Bucs coaching intern under Lovie Smith, Steve White, was banging away on his keyboard breaking down the loss to the Colts.
As you can expect, Steve makes many, many interesting points. This got Joe’s attention:
@sgw94 – Had we had 16 points rather than 12 there’s a good chance we stay committed to the running game even after Indy took the lead in the second
Remember, it was a one-score game until late in the fourth quarter with roughly less than six minutes left. So ditching Doug Martin was odd.
Yes, yes, yes, both Lovie and offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter said they were trying to exploit matchups. Yesterday, Koetter said there were receivers open, but because of the pass rush, America’s Quarterback, Jameis Winston, could not get the ball to them.
But by slamming the brakes on the run game, did Lovie panic? Was he seeing something in his defense that told him it was just a matter of time before old man Matt Hasselbeck was going to bust the game open and the Bucs better get some points quickly?
A later point from White claimed Lovie’s mindset is that running the ball and avoiding penalties are two pillars of success. Swing and miss Sunday on both accounts.
December 3rd, 2015 at 10:59 am
Good points Joe. It’s important to continue using the last game as an example. It’s not the first time this season that we’ve let the “flow of the game” get us away from our strengths. Let us use the Colts game as an example going forward and learn from it.
December 3rd, 2015 at 11:11 am
The Colts were doing a pretty good job of stopping the run in the second half!(when we tried) Why NOT lean on Winston to make plays to Evans/Jackson/Brate down the field and exploit our favorable matchups?? I don’t disagree with the play calls… It’s easy to second guess the play calls when it’s all said and done! Our players just FAILED TO EXECUTE! It’s as simple as that….
December 3rd, 2015 at 11:28 am
You know what else is interesting. Not once did Steve White be critical of the “Tampa 2” like so many media guys on Twitter were saying all game long. Steve White said:
There you have it folks. All of you people who keep saying to dump Lovie because the Tampa 2 is outdated, well, they don’t play much of it to begin with which is what most anyone paying attention knew already.
Also, no one is talking about panic if Mike Evans makes that critical catch for a potential TD. I could be wrong but it seems that’s the match up they wanted to exploit all game. On the Monday show Lovie said the staff saw a match up they liked in the passing game. Trying to exploit a match up isn’t a bad approach to winning games, ya think?
December 3rd, 2015 at 11:30 am
Meh just came down to them making some good plays and us not even when they were there to be made.
-Holding call negates TD
-ME drops would-be TD
-Fumble we recover in red zone territory that would have had us at 1st and goal with the horsecollar but didn’t happen because a horrifically bad call for defensive holding when Verner literally didn’t look to even touch the WR
-Winston missing Evans deep open for potential TD
Those 4 things cost us the game more than anything further analysis will come up with imo
If 2 of those go the other way we likely win
December 3rd, 2015 at 12:00 pm
the better question is, “did dirk panic”?….lovie gave dirk full control of the offense so if we stop running the ball its dirks fault not lovie….it kills me how people want to give credit to dirk when we play well on offense but turn around and blame lovie when the offense doesn’t play well…boy I tell you, some people are just out to get lovie…GO BUCS!!!
December 3rd, 2015 at 12:16 pm
Ok so we went away from the run in the second half and it didn’t work, so now we are going to say why didn’t we run the ball. If we ran the ball 80% of the second half plays everyone would be screaming why did they go all turtle out there. Look it’s easy to say we should have done it the other way after we lose, but really if we go out and execute as poorly as we did in the second half it doesn’t really matter what the play calls were. I think Lovie knew we would need at least 25 points to win, and they stayed aggressive trying to get them. When the defense is a know weakness you have to ask the offense to do more, even with a rookie QB. I have no issue with the party calling, but the team needs to play better on both sides of the ball. We lost to many one on one match ups, that tells me there players are better than ours.
December 3rd, 2015 at 1:24 pm
813:
Not exactly accurate. More than a couple of times when asked why not throw the ball more, Dirk Koetter has said, “We have a head coach who likes to run the ball.”
Lovie was the first one to defend throwing the ball in the second half Sunday.
December 3rd, 2015 at 7:21 pm
Lovie swings and misses alot. In fact, if he took his W-L record with the Bucs to the MLB, he would sure need to hit for some power to stay in the show. Idk how nobody is talking about him being on the hot seat? Is that how low the expectations are for the Bucs? 7-20 is somehow acceptable? Boy I need to make alot of money so I can buy this team and turn it around! I’m not sure the Glazers even know they own aa football team