Training Camp Day 2 Practice Notes
July 26th, 2021
Bucs AC/DC-loving general manager Jason Licht does a live interview with WTVT-TV Channel 13 man-about-town, Charley Belcher, today during training camp practice.
Of course Joe was out at One Buc Palace broiling on the sidelines watching Day 2 of Bucs 2021 training camp. While one play stuck out, here are some other highlights of this morning’s stirfry practice.
* Remember folks, this is still underwear football for the first week, Bucs Super Bowl-winning coach Bucco Bruce Arians said yesterday. Underwear football means no hitting. It means dudes in helmets, no pads and shorts. It means flag football without the flags. Joe keeps writing this because folks like to ask Joe about blocking and tackling in underwear football. There is none.
* Blaine Gabbert hits Scotty Miller deep down the left sideline. Now Joe has to be careful here because it is underwear football where sometimes wide receivers look a whole lot better than they will when the pads come on (Kenny Bell and Tommy Streeter say “hi.”). If Joe had to pick a player sticking out more than usual or better than others, it is Miller.
* Jaelon Darden gets “wideass open,” as Arians would say, down the middle of the field and Tom Brady connects with him for a big gain.
* Brady attempts to hit a receiver on a crossing pattern from the right side (Joe couldn’t tell the intended target as several Bucs were a human shield trying to keep reporters from seeing the play) and the ball was tipped at the line of scrimmage. The ball hits the dirt. Incomplete.
* This time it is Jaydon Mickens down the middle for a nice gain.
* Devin White blitzes Brady on the left side and Brady has to throw the ball away.
* Brady and Darden hook up again, this time down the left sideline.
* Brady hits Mike Evans on a crossing pattern from the right and Evans scores. This gets the sparse crowd excited.
* It still irks Joe that the Bucs (so far) have locked out long-time Bucs fans who cannot afford season tickets or who don’t belong to a special interest group after years of suffering losing seasons. This morning, clearly, there would have been many more fans if the practice was open to the general public. Bucs players have repeatedly said the past two days they really like practicing with fans again. There may have been 300 fans today. Far, far less than Sunday. Just a damn unnecessary if not rude shame. Hey Bucs, there is still time to correct this awful wrong. Will you do the right thing?
* Red zone drills! Brady hits Miller on the left side on a screen and he gets down to the three-yard line.
* Brady connects on a short pass in the left flat to Giovani Bernard who scores. Somewhere, Ira is giddy.
* Ronald Jones tries to run inside through the three-hole and is bottled up by the defense. Joe hears someone holler “Good job, Nacho!” As RoJo heads back to the huddle, Joe could hear him say, “My bad.”
* On the very next play, what seemed like the same playcall, Playoff Lenny scores untouched.
* Gabbert tries to hit RoJo with a short pass on the left side. Joe couldn’t tell if rookie defensive back Jayvon Hagan knocked the ball out of RoJo’s hands or if RoJo just flat dropped it. Joe clearly heard RoJo grunt, “Ugh!”
* Brady tries to hit foot-rubbing, car-littering Rob Gronkowski in the far right corner of the end zone but Gronk was double-covered and he didn’t get to the corner quick enough to have a shot to catch it. Joe’s not sure if the coverage slowed Gronk or not.
* Brady rifles a pass in the back of the end zone to Darden and the pass was just slightly ahead and above the 5-8 Darden. That old man still has a fastball!
* Darden has been getting a lot of looks with the first-team offense early in training camp. It appears the Bucs have hopes he can hang with the first team, otherwise they wouldn’t have him on Field No. 1. So the Bucs are likely seeing if Darden is up to the task. If he impresses, he likely will get more snaps.
* No Context Antonio Brown: Furniture-tossing, bicycle-throwing Antonio Brown is not practicing but he is working out on the practice fields. At one point, he was seen talking one-on-one with Arians as the Bucs coach sat in his customized red golf cart.
* 7-on-7 drills in the red zone! Reserves are getting a lot of work with Brady in this drill. On one play Tanner Hudson is in motion from right to left and Mr. Irrelevant, Grant Stuard is trailing him. Just when Stuard gets over the left guard the ball is snapped and the left side of the Bucs offensive line does sort of a picket fence. Stuard is lost in the wash and Hudson scores an easy touchdown.
* Ouch: Lawrence Wright IV dives to break up a Gabbert pass and lands on his shoulder. That didn’t look good. But he got up and appeared to be OK. That might hurt tonight. Nice hustle, though.
* Shaq Barrett flies in from the offensive right side and would have blown up Gabbert, but no hitting.
Enjoy today’s Ira Kaufman Podcast.
July 26th, 2021 at 3:27 pm
Thanks for the notes as always Joe!
July 26th, 2021 at 3:27 pm
HOT!
I remember standing in my truck bed behind the fence at the Hall of Fame OBP watching Perkins run 3 a days in pads ..
July 26th, 2021 at 3:38 pm
Thanks Joe. I’ve missed these!
July 26th, 2021 at 4:14 pm
I think we need to start an over-under for how many times Joe writes the word underwear.
July 26th, 2021 at 4:20 pm
Thanks, Joe……better than Zack!!!
July 26th, 2021 at 4:36 pm
I hope to hear wideass open and touchdown spoken together a few times this year.
July 26th, 2021 at 4:37 pm
Interested to know how Kinley looks at corner and also whos running with the first punt unit.
Thanks for the notes Joes
July 26th, 2021 at 5:07 pm
Great report as usual Joe.
July 26th, 2021 at 5:16 pm
Belcher and Licht need to go on diets.
July 26th, 2021 at 5:44 pm
Is Trask getting any reps with the 3rd string offense? Is he hurt or not available? Sorry I just haven’t heard a peep about him.
July 26th, 2021 at 6:05 pm
Drunkinybor…Big surprise. He’s been playing like garbage on field two. Or so I read.
July 26th, 2021 at 6:09 pm
The longer Brown stays out, the more work Darden seems to get. I think this is good on many levels.
July 26th, 2021 at 6:12 pm
SOEbuc thanks for the info. That’s a shame.. But some what expected from a rookie a q.b. I just hope he keeps his mind and ears open and obesorbs everything that Brady does.
July 26th, 2021 at 7:08 pm
thanks for the read
July 26th, 2021 at 7:14 pm
Bucs grooming trask to he gabberts back up once brady retires .
July 26th, 2021 at 8:01 pm
He’s practicing, mostly with the bubble guys, future UPS drivers, Geek Squad managers, etc.
July 26th, 2021 at 8:12 pm
I know you always use that line about the camp meat Joe, but don’t the majority of them have college degrees?
July 26th, 2021 at 8:23 pm
When Brady retires, we’re going to bring Jameis back!!
July 26th, 2021 at 10:53 pm
I don’t understand why Trask gets so much hate on Joebucsfan! Even when they’re doing podcasts when they bring him up it’s always negative talk. And the crazy thing is his numbers was better than Brady when he was in college. Mac Jones gets love and every player he gave the ball to were picked in the first round . Trevor Lawrence played with good players and he didn’t have good games all the time. Go look at the Alabama game and see how Trask played.
July 26th, 2021 at 11:02 pm
And Blane Gabbert is trash but so many of yall have faith in him !! I would rather Trask over Gabbert any day I know what Gabbert is . The only reason why he will be the backup to Brady is Bruce loves him !! That’s what you call politics !!! We need to give Trask a chance and go look at what he did in college his TD to ints stats .
July 26th, 2021 at 11:17 pm
Joe doesn’t hate the guy one damn bit. Not sure how you are hatching this notion.
If you are suggesting Joe’s strong focus on the first-team offense and defense (which includes the all-time greatest quarterback) of a Super Bowl-winning team and players who will decide if the team repeats as world champions over a guy you pray never takes the field the next two years, then that tells Joe you have no fundamental concept of what fans want.
July 26th, 2021 at 11:32 pm
Joe it’s ok to be focus with the team this year but I don’t know if Brady coming back after 2022 season . We don’t know what’s going to happen after this year. Any thing can happen and Brady might retire after this year we don’t know for a fact he’s even coming back next year . Brady is year to year!!
July 27th, 2021 at 12:29 am
When is padded practices 🕵🏻♂️