Domination
October 20th, 2020
Historic defense?
Joe still gets goosebumps thinking about how freaking dominant the Bucs played Sunday, completely and totally shutting down the Packers and future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
The Bucs had Rodgers head spinning so much that one Packers beat guy said it is time for the Jordan Love era to begin in Wisconsin.
The Tampa Bay defense is playing fantastic. How so? Well, the pride of Seminole High School, Jeff Darlington of BSPN, has numbers that may take your breath away.
Brace yourselves, Bucs fans. Could this be true?
Just how good is Tampa Bay’s defense playing right now? The Bucs are only the 2nd team in the last 20 seasons to have 10+ takeaways, 20+ sacks and allow fewer than 70 rush YPG in their first 6 games. Only other team to do so? The 2008 Super Bowl-winning Steelers.
— Jeff Darlington (@JeffDarlington) October 19, 2020
Well, Joe is going to play along with this bloodrush excitement, though it may be completely premature.
The last and only time the Bucs made it to the Super Bowl (and won it), that team also lost a starting defensive tackle to injury, Booger McFarland.
If you are not chugging a Big Storm Brewing beer right now after reading this post, Joe thinks you have no soul.
October 20th, 2020 at 12:06 am
That’s secondary is getting real good but they are young and they still have some lapses once in a while.
The front seven is fantastic but I would love to see Shaq rack up some sacks!
October 20th, 2020 at 12:06 am
They will need to bring it again Sunday night. The Raiders offense is no joke
October 20th, 2020 at 12:13 am
The Raiders O will be a serious test for the D, not to mention Gruden would love some butthurt hate revenge.
The Raiders O is for real.
October 20th, 2020 at 12:20 am
Well damn if those aren’t some ludicrous stats. Yep, this is a team built on Defense, and that’s just the way Bucs fans like it! The Raiders will be another great test, but after the last game, it’s obvious, only the Bucs can beat the Bucs.
October 20th, 2020 at 12:23 am
They don’t have Big Storm where I live or I’d be chugging.
October 20th, 2020 at 12:41 am
The last and only time the Bucs made it to the Super Bowl (and won it), that team also lost the first game of the season to the Saints (but at home)
October 20th, 2020 at 1:46 am
all pundits are beginning to rave about this defense…
and the fact that bowles makes smart choices in bucs gear to wear
October 20th, 2020 at 3:41 am
Every time I get too hyped up about our win against the Packers, I think about our loss to the Bears. Helps me to keep things in perspective. I’m happy as all hell that our defense is playing well, but it’s still early yet. If the d is playing like this come December I’ll be drinking a whole lot of Big Storm Beer, but just not this early in the morning.
October 20th, 2020 at 4:52 am
I must be superstitious because articles like this always make me feel like I’m about to be jinxed. The same exact players who showed up on Sunday and dominated Aaron Rodgers & the Packers also showed up 2 weeks earlier & got rag-dolled in the passing game by a rookie Chargers QB. We won both games, but it was a much different defense that took the field 2 days ago.
Sandwiched in-between was that Thursday night game against the Bears who happen to have a pretty decent defense themselves. Our D had a fairly good night I thought, holding them to only 20 points, 35 yds rushing & 208 yds passing. Bucs also totally shut down the Bears deep passes (1-for-9) & even intercepted one, but allowed Foles to throw for over 85% in the short passing game. That and untimely penalties ultimately hurt us.
Hopefully we learned 2 valuable lessons defensively from that Bears game: (1) we have to play aggressive, smashmouth football to dominate; and (2) but we have to show great discipline in the process & knock off the foolish penalties.
And as an aside, our offense is feasting on TOs generated by this defense and its aggressiveness. Almost one-third (55 pts) of our total 177 Points Scored have been from those 11 TOs. That’s great COMPLIMENTARY FOOTBALL … but it all starts with the turnovers. Our next opponent, the Raiders, are susceptible there. They’ve turned the ball over 7 times in 5 games, 6 of those being fumbles lost. They’ve piled up a lot of yardage each game, but the 2 teams that beat them had 5 of those 7 TOs (Pats took the ball away 3 times & Bills took it away 2 times). That’s the Raiders Achilles Heel IMO.
October 20th, 2020 at 7:02 am
Defense rules
I agree 1000 %. At times the defense looks soft / playing off receivers a good ten yards. The packers ran that same set with 3 stacked receivers to the right like 4 or 5 plays almost in a row and made it look easy (At beginning of game)
Chargers Were going deep at will
What did devin white say though (if actually true) that he asked Bowles to unleash him? Defense flying around …blitzing from all over the place. We have freakish speed that needs to be used properly (controlled spurts). I would be ok with sending devin white on blitz often as he has struggled in coverage
The key though for defense is to be aggressive. Bring the heat. Make qbs uncomfortable.
October 20th, 2020 at 7:16 am
Two areas of play that do not get enough credit continue to be the offensive line and defensive backs play. Wirfs and Winfield have improved both those units. Give credit to the coaching on how much these units have improved since Arians arrived.
This is the NFL and mostly a passing league. There are big plays made by almost every team – every week.
When do we notice those units?
When there is a breakdown.
16 game regular season schedule – with teams having 60 to 75 snaps against us both offensively and defensively per game.
So we will have plays in the games where our defensive backs look out of position/get beat.
So we will have plays in the game where our offensive line does not get a 3rd and 1 or that they miss a block and the QB gets hit.
The fact of the matter is both units have played well this year as a whole. I wish more would give them credit and not act like there is no one able to make plays on the other team.
October 20th, 2020 at 8:23 am
Bird … Lots of good stuff in your comments; kudos. For some reason White’s comment about asking Bowles to ‘unleash him’ really caught my attention. During the first 3 games Devin was on fire I thought; very aggressive. But if you look at his ‘Advanced Defense’ stats on PFR, he wasn’t gettin it done in pass defense.
o Saints game: targeted 5 times; allowed 4 completions.
o Panthers game: targeted 9 times; allowed 9 completions.
o Broncos game: targeted 7 times; allowed 4 completions.
But then in the Chargers game he was only targeted ONCE (0 completions) and in the Bears game he was only targeted TWICE (2 completions). My assumption is that Bowles had him (and others) trying to protect the middle better against short passes more (where we were getting chewed up in the first 3 games) and that limited his aggressiveness. Maybe not; just an assumption. Obviously something changed though in games 4 & 5, and it was significant enough for Devin to ask to be ‘unleashed’. Odds are we’ll never know the real back-story on that.
October 20th, 2020 at 8:51 am
Hey Joe. Just getting to this article, now. I have a soul, but it’s 8:51 in the morning and I’m tele-working. Lol
October 20th, 2020 at 9:02 am
This is our next head coach !!
October 20th, 2020 at 9:51 am
It is only 8 am here so …………I can’t have a Bromosa
October 20th, 2020 at 10:32 am
They have 10 games left to play!! They can (and have proven they can) LOSE THEM ALL!!! This team needs to move onto Vegas RIGHT NOW!!! This is throw it away Tuesday!! Where the team throws away all the fan mail from the last game and forgets it ever happened!! Yesterday was mail it in Monday!!! Lol …. But for real they can’t get caught looking at themselves in the mirror for too long!! They DID commit penalties they just weren’t called BTW!!! … That Edwards pick Barrett was lined up offsides and the guard had a false start… Go watch the tape their were penalties all over the place that just didn’t get called… I think maybe the Brady effect got to the refs and SOMEONE had a meeting and told them stop calling bull crap calls on a Brady team!! This is not the bucs of old that you practice your flag throwing on!!!…. But yeah it’s on to Vegas y’all to do it AGAIN!!!!
October 20th, 2020 at 10:39 am
realist
defensive domination and development NEVER happened under smitty!!!!!!!!
winfield,davis,dean,whitehead,edwards,nelson,nachos have all developed under this staff…..
time for you and ndog to herd the sheep!!!!!!!
GO BUCS!!!!!
October 20th, 2020 at 12:57 pm
Still a little early but it works for me.
October 20th, 2020 at 9:10 pm
Where is D-Bag HOFr Sapp on this defense now? Eat a bag of D’s Sapp.
In BA I Trust!