Pass Rush Needs To Improve
October 10th, 2021
No. 46.
Sometimes in September, Joe honestly thought Mike Smith was back running the Bucs defense.
Quarterbacks often have passed the ball on the Bucs at will like it’s a flag football game with the Bucs’ pass rush at times just rumor.
Those were two high traits of Smitty’s defenses, a toxic blend if there ever was one.
Now Joe has to be fair here. Jason Pierre-Paul has missed the last two games with a bum shoulder but is expected to play today. We will find out around 11:30 a.m when the inactives list is released. And of course, the secondary has been ravaged by injuries.
Larry Holder of The Athletic did a breakdown on pass rush pressures and the numbers are wincing when it comes to the Bucs. Per Holder, the Bucs rank No. 30 in the NFL in getting pressure on quarterbacks.
The Bucs pressured quarterbacks on 3.6 percent of their pass rushes, per Holder. The NFL leader is the Stinking Panthers, who get pressure 11.1 percent of the time.
Of Holder’s top-50 pass rushers, the only Bucs player is sacks king Shaq Barrett. But he’s way down at No. 46. It seems Shaq gets pressure on quarterbacks on 10.6 percent of his rushes.
Who is the best at pressure? Matt Judon of the Belicheats leads the NFL at 22 percent.
It was a very good sign last week to see the Bucs start getting to the quarterback. Nothing helps out a weary secondary like a good rush.
With the Dolphins having a lousy offensive line, Joe is encouraged that last week’s effort won’t be an outlier.
October 10th, 2021 at 2:54 am
TB12 is holding this house of cards together. Time for everyone else to get it going
October 10th, 2021 at 8:13 am
Give it some time……It’s only going to take a few more games where Joe Tryon is gong o be brought us as a possible rookie of the year.
October 10th, 2021 at 8:28 am
When teams start having to pay attention to Tryon, our LBs will get more easy runs at the QB also. When Jpp is back move him inside, and have Tryon out there also.
October 10th, 2021 at 8:50 am
I will be paying attention to VV-JTS and how they develop as a tandem.
October 10th, 2021 at 9:04 am
The Bucs are also getting a ton of quick screen passes. It’s not like even a quarter of those passes are 5 and 7 step drop passes. Misleading stat.
October 10th, 2021 at 9:53 am
Can’t get much pass rush if the offense is throwing quick passes on short drops. Ball out in under 2 seconds. No time for the defense to get in there.
October 10th, 2021 at 12:24 pm
John, I agree that it’s hard to get much of a pass rush if opposing QBs take short drops & get the ball out super-fast. And I think we saw that on display in Games 1 & 2, and we were caught with our pants down blitzing way too much trying to generate pressure (100 blitzes in just those 2 games).
But in Game 3 it looks to me as if Bowles changed it up a bit and blitzed a LOT less (only blitzed 15 times that game; my guess is in trying to improve short coverage). Actually worked a tiny bit better it seems, because Stafford ‘only’ threw for 71%, although that unfortunately included 4 TDs). Still, White & LVD were much more effective in coverage it appears (targeted 13 times but only allowing 9 completions … 69.2% … much better than they had been doing as a tandem in pass coverage).
But then in Game 4 Bowles cranked up more blitzes; 26 total blitzes, over half by White (10) & LVD (5). It seems to have paid off in terms of pressure because the Bucs got 4 sacks & 14 total pressures. Their pass coverage ratings were somewhat worse though (the 2 of them were targeted 17 times & allowed 14 completions … 82.4%).
I tend to think that Todd Bowles is still ‘experimenting’ in terms of ‘balancing’ pass coverage (especially short) versus blitzing to generate pressure. Probably will depend more than anything on how well our DLine generates pressure on its’ own AND on how well the opposing QB responds to blitzing. Today’s game against Miami could very well provide a glimpse into how our defense will respond over the next handful of games (if I had to guess, I’d guess we’ll blitz about 25-30 times today).
October 10th, 2021 at 12:27 pm
If JPP is back that will help with getting more pressure on the quarterback. If the front four can get into the back field then that opens up sack city. The linebackers and the guys coming off the corner will get to the quarterback. They must put pressure on the quarterback so the secondary is not so suspect. The secondary will be better this week. If Brady has a good day and the front four can put pressure on then we do not have to worry.