“We Go Back And We Watch Film It’s Like, That’s Not The Same Team”
October 19th, 2021
Explains being the hunted.
Champions bonded Thursday night.
After the Bucs beat the Eagles, Devin White joined the NFL Network set and sat inches between Steve Smith and Joe Thomas, both NFL Network analysts (hey Roger Goodell, Joe thought players couldn’t be anywhere near reporters this year — again — because of The Sickness, and players could only do press conferences 10 feet away?).
There, fellow NFL Network analyst Michael Irvin, a three-time champion with the Cowboys, got into a conversation with White about how teams now treat the Bucs.
Irvin, without fully tipping his hand, said he noticed a change in how teams treated his Cowboys the season after a Super Bowl win. White didn’t disagree and the two began a short conversation about how opponents play a defending champion.
Devin White: Coming into a game, I feel we are getting everybody’s best shot now.
Michael Irvin: Yes you do!
White: That’s the main thing. Teams play us so hard. We go back and we watch film, it’s like, that’s not the same team.
Irvin: That’s true!
White: But that’s what we say. It’s an ‘any given Sunday, Monday, Thursday’ league. So you have to bring it. So we can’t roll the dice out and say, ‘Hey, you are going to play us but we are going to beat you.’ We have to bring it. It’s got to be a mentality for four quarters.
Irvin: It’s like, “Who is this joker? This is not the joker I saw on film. Who is this joker out here tonight? When they play you [as a defending champ] they play you a whole different way.
When you hear teams say that when they win a title they go from the hunter into the hunted and take everyone’s best shot, they really do. It’s not nonsense. Some teams and players raise their games to another level (unless they are the Dolphins).
Two champions, Irvin and White, a generation apart, admitted it. It was pretty cool to watch and listen.
The good thing about this is, the Bucs, when they reach the playoffs, will be battle-tested.
October 19th, 2021 at 5:33 am
I wasn’t aware we clinched a playoff birth already.
October 19th, 2021 at 5:34 am
birth berth same difference
October 19th, 2021 at 8:14 am
That’s why the rams were acting like the won the super bowl after the win. Lol a week later they get punched in the mouth.
October 19th, 2021 at 8:29 am
Why they didn’t look like that on film was because the other teams they played covered the pass better then Tampa does. Doesn’t have anything to do with getting their best, the teams are going at Tampa’s weakness. The same weakness that’s been there for about 10 years now. Need to pull a Rams and trade a first round pick for corner that can shut someone down. You go play Hopkins right now and he may have 300 yards receiving in a game against the Bucs.
October 19th, 2021 at 8:33 am
The “when they reach the playoffs” talk is still a bit unsettling. Bucs fans have long been conditioned to expect the absurdly unexpected.
Steve Austin on a Bucs postgame radio broadcast in ’03 talked about the playoffs after another crap midseason loss as if it was totally a given. I remember thinking “What are you seeing that’s making you think they’re going to the playoffs?”
But with Brady and a 5-1 start, things are looking a hell of a lot better than ’03.
October 20th, 2021 at 7:06 am
Miller5252, we are talking about about this 5-1 team this year and I certainly will take the word of two Superbowl Champs over some
Social Meda “knows it all but never been there”.