How Full Is The Glass?
August 6th, 2019
“Jason, tell me who’s winning.”
Training camp is such a great study in psychology.
A win for the offense is a loss for the defense. Neither side is doing real game-planning and successes and failures can be mirages.
It happens every year. Once upon a time Josh McCown and the 2014 Bucs offense had a rather strong training camp.
Heck, Bucs officials used to rave about the spring and summer work of Doug Martin before his back-to-back seasons of 2.9 yards per carry. Joe’s seen plenty of linebackers and safeties look lost in camp over the years and then step up when the games are real.
One of Joe’s favorite examples of training camp mirages is former left tackle Anthony Collins and defensive end Michael “Ghost” Johnson going through the summer of ’14 balancing each other out on the field. Neither stood out. Little did anyone know they would both be historic Bucs busts and gone the following season.
Second-year right guard Alex Cappa has been an emerging light this summer as a first-teamer, topped off today by a “dominant” review by America’s Quarterback, Jameis Winston.
Joe had noted Cappa previously, but one also has to wonder who is Cappa dominating? Part of what makes camp fun is figuring what’s real and what isn’t.
And therein lies the beauty of preseason football. It helps put everything into focus.
In the meantime, Joe will dream about a more than capable Cappa fighting off ferocious play from the likes of Ndamukong Suh, Vita Vea and Beau Allen. And just for more fun, Joe will fantasize about Ryan Jensen playing like the guy the Bucs thought they got in March of 2018.
August 6th, 2019 at 12:56 pm
Preseason week 2 is the real test. How will the Young guns on D fare against HOF talent The Beard in what promises to be an epic August showdown.
August 6th, 2019 at 1:18 pm
I think or hope that bowles defense or his scheme is going to look like todd grantham’s up at UF which is an attacking fast defense. Just not sure the bucs have all the pieces to do it yet, esp against the balanced offenses in the South
August 6th, 2019 at 1:36 pm
I don’t know if Ryan Jensen had support in Baltimore but the guy is just very slow and gets Worked when moving laterally!!!
August 6th, 2019 at 2:04 pm
Be fair. The Bucs may have had a good offense that season if their offensive coordinator didn’t have a serious heart issue before the season started.
August 6th, 2019 at 2:06 pm
Also, at this point anyone has to be better than Benonoch at RG.
August 6th, 2019 at 2:34 pm
I don’t recall many times reading about players or positional groups doing good in camp (i.e. media notes – not Bucs website articles) and then they were terrible in regular season.
I don’t remember thinking McClown was killing it that offseason, and in preseason the team was at 10 or less points in 3 of the 4 games lol.
I do recall the media noticing Doug Martin looked a lot better and rejuvenated going into 2015, because that was the only year I last invested in Martin in fantasy and it was because of those offseason reports which proved to be accurate. I don’t recall media hyping Martin much at all going into 16/17 even if the team officials were.
If Cappa is going with the 1st then he should be facing off against guys like Suh/Vea/etc which are established players not a question mark free agent.
And if our secondary is facing Mike Evans/Chris Godwin/OJ Howard and holdling their own in terms of coverage/contesting balls/etc then that’s a pretty damn good barometer since our pass catchers are as good as it gets across the league.
All about context with this stuff. Preseason is still important for guaging the line play against other teams tho / seeing different looks
August 6th, 2019 at 2:35 pm
I’m sorry 14 or less points*
10/10/14/26 were offensive scores in that preseason
August 6th, 2019 at 3:21 pm
Lordcorn-
Write as long as you want. It’s generally better than the article. No offense Joes but the dude can write. You, Pickgrin and Macabee.
August 6th, 2019 at 5:05 pm
The glass is always, better than half full. For me.