“We’ve Got To Do A Better Job Of Starting The Game Faster”
January 10th, 2022
Focused on defense.
Yes, Bucs Super Bowl-winning coach Bucco Bruce Arians knows stopping the run will be critical facing the run-heavy Eagles to open the playoffs.
Since Lavonte David has been out with a messed-up foot, Devin White seems fully lost without David at his side and the rest of the Bucs’ run defense has suffered a great deal.
What once was the foundation of the defense has major cracks in it. That has led to early scores and Arians has had enough of that.
In the past three games, all against worthless — teams the Stinking Panthers (twice) and the lowlife Jets — the Bucs have allowed points on each opening drive. Pouty Cam Newton led Carolina to a field goal two weeks ago. Last week struggling Jets rookie Zach Wilson engineered a touchdown, and yesterday shell-shocked Sam Darnold put together a touchdown drive of his own on the Stinking Panthers’ first possession.
Enough! said Arians today in his day-after presser.
“We’ve got to do a better job of starting the game faster,” Arians said. “We defer and we are giving up points. We’ve got to get that fixed.”
To Joe this is simply not being prepared, that’s all. Unless an offense fully hoodwinks a defense — you know, like coming out in a new-look formation — not stopping opening drives is sloppy football.
Well-prepared teams don’t do this regularly. Perhaps the Bucs miss sack king Shaq Barrett, Jason Pierre-Paul and David more than they care to let on? That’s understandable if it is true.
Putting players in a position to make plays is just fundamental preparation. If guys get caught out of position, that’s a different story. Well-prepared teams will always be in position.
Joe used to pound on Raheem Morris for having poorly-prepared defenses. Morris was outstanding at adjusting during the game but week in and week out he and his defense got caught with their pants down as teams racked up early leads often too big to overcome.
Enabling playoff teams to score on opening drives, to quote the great Kenny Stabler, will have you sleeping on your side of the bed before long.
January 10th, 2022 at 2:53 pm
Arians is right of course. But that being said…
The Panthers got off to a fast start, and in particular they exploited the loss of the OLBs along the edge. It was a well-scripted attack that led to an early score and some nice yardage gains. But as soon as Darnold ran out of script, he was back to holding the ball too long. That’s his weakness and something that holds him back from being an NFL starting QB, he just doesn’t read the field well after the ball is snapped. That’s when the Buc defense really took over.
January 10th, 2022 at 2:56 pm
Missed sacks and tackles are the biggest problem. Free blitzers always run past the qb and tacklers whiffing or never expecting a juke move or a cutback giving up big plays because of it. Pass rush is not putting enough pressure and backfield can’t cover more than 1.5 seconds. People keep crying about Bowels but it’s the players missing tackles or dropping interceptions
January 10th, 2022 at 2:58 pm
Playing from behind is exciting…..makes you nervous….thinking of losing….and then…..there’s Brady.
January 10th, 2022 at 2:59 pm
Yep. Just need to be better prepared. It sounds simple because it is. But this had been a problem all season long. Speaks volumes about the coaching staff unfortunately.
January 10th, 2022 at 3:00 pm
Amen Joe! If our Offense is on the sidelines, Brady and the Gang can’t work their magic. It’s really frustrating seeing our Defense decline in Run Defense. The Eagles aren’t stupid, they know if they run the ball effectively and chew the clock they’ll be walking out victorious. I know I’m sounding like Captain Obvious, at the same time seeing our Defense bleed on the field, at times profusely, is something that keeps me up at night. It’s 1 thing if a team is struggling in September or October, but it’s totally different in December and January. Hoping for the best as always. Go Bucs!
January 10th, 2022 at 3:07 pm
I’m more concerned about the hungry emotional prep than game plan prep.
In fairness, the Kitties and Jets were prolly difficult to get up for…which is a real flaw in game prep and almost cost them the Jets game.
January 10th, 2022 at 3:09 pm
I am not only disappointed in how the D starts the game, but how the O starts.
Weak 3-and-outs should not be tolerated, much less a sack on the first play.
January 10th, 2022 at 3:18 pm
Looked to me that yesterday we didnt unleash our blitzes until after that opening TD. Once we started blitzing on that second drive the Panthers struggled offensively and seemed like a matter of time before we forced a turnover.
We will never know but I wonder if the playcaller will try to win a game like that with a basic gameplan to avoid giving playoff teams the gamefilm for study.
January 10th, 2022 at 3:20 pm
“Teams that are well-prepared don’t do this regularly. Perhaps the Bucs miss Bucs sack king Shaq Barrett, Jason Pierre-Paul and David more than they care to let on? That’s understandable if it is true.”
Yes missing 3 of your starting 4 LB’s is very evident.
Minter looks noticeably slower than LD. That is not prep, that is talent.
The Run defense is right now back to before Todd began to coach the D.
GO BUCS!!!!
January 10th, 2022 at 3:24 pm
The D gives up third downs and can’t stop even bad teams with down and distance. Our LBs get sealed off and our secondary can’t cover or tackle. As far as our Offense, not sure why Brady always struggles in the first quarter? Is it the game plan or Brady?
January 10th, 2022 at 3:44 pm
please Bucs do not wear the red uniforms–it always backfires on us
January 10th, 2022 at 3:45 pm
The Bucs’ play lost a lot of energy after they clinched the NFCS.
We can expect a different level of intensity in the playoffs.
We forget … THE BUCS ARE THE DEFENDING CHAMPS
January 10th, 2022 at 3:49 pm
Let Brady call the plays. Grover offers Joe Gronk an Brady dinner at Charlies for a win gainst the Filtheydelphians. Those stinking fans should be grounded and pounded in to mush.
January 10th, 2022 at 3:50 pm
Yep.. and everything else!
Especially running the ball!
January 10th, 2022 at 3:54 pm
Funny how Raheem, as is his lot in life, had no answer for Jimmy G.
January 10th, 2022 at 3:55 pm
SKBucsFan Says:
January 10th, 2022 at 2:59 pm
Yep. Just need to be better prepared. It sounds simple because it is. But this had been a problem all season long. Speaks volumes about the coaching staff unfortunately.
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…and despite this expert analysis our incompetent coaching staff won a Super Bowl ladt year, and coached a team that ranked near the top in offense and defense to the second best record in the NFL this year despite multiple key injuries and distractions. Most teams would be thrilled to have that kind of incompetent coaching
January 10th, 2022 at 4:01 pm
Buc4evr
Might be BLs script early on.
I say come out in the No huddle and Blue Bono and Red tornado the Eagles to death😂😂
January 10th, 2022 at 4:07 pm
HC Grover Says:
January 10th, 2022 at 3:49 pm
Let Brady call the plays. Grover offers Joe Gronk an Brady dinner at Charlies for a win gainst the Filtheydelphians. Those stinking fans should be grounded and pounded in to mush.
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Fortunately ownership seems pretty happy with a Super Bowl winning offense that came back a year later and despite numerous key injuries still ranked 2nd best in the NFL and ended up with the second best record in the league. Despite the results armchair GM’s actually want to change up what isn’t broken based on results
January 10th, 2022 at 4:09 pm
David.. ok it’s not just me that noticed how allergic our guys are to tackling QBs. It’s surprising we had as many sacks as we did this year, and maybe it’s more of a recent thing, because we always seem to have guys whiffig right before s completion downfield
January 10th, 2022 at 4:11 pm
Yes, they do. That 1st quarter was an absolute horror.
January 10th, 2022 at 4:30 pm
lot of Bucs players act a bit like they are believing their own hype, breathing their own pipe fumes.. a.k.a over confident….
we started flat in 4 of last 5 games(Bills, aints , Jets Panthers).. we lost 1 , took OT to beat Bills, and had to fight back in 2nd half against 2 teams not in playoffs…I thought after loss to aints that it would change –but it didn’t… it took ME aggressive stiff arm just before half to get us going –after that we had the swagger back..
ANY playoff team can beat us… we HAVE to start off with Swagger-effective Swagger
January 10th, 2022 at 4:31 pm
When we run the Leftwich offense, its pedestrian. When Brady runs the hurry up….we get into rhythm. Defensively we are missing JPP and David but I dont think Bowles unleashes the defense until we get a lead and into rhythm on offense.
January 10th, 2022 at 4:58 pm
I don’t think it is a coincidence that our run defense started to crack after injuries to David and Barrett, as well as JPP. Collectively, their absences have weakened our run defense. Football involves systems and subsystems. A breakdown in one part of the system affects other parts of the system. When our DB’s were hurt, we saw how that impacted the pass rush, as just one example. I suspect if we are heathy on defense against Philly (and that includes a healthy Dean), we’ll do alright against their running attack.
January 10th, 2022 at 5:09 pm
Heard that before.
January 10th, 2022 at 5:17 pm
It seems to me that once runners get past the d-line our d-backs try to strip or punch the ball out instead of tackling. Not just our team, but all teams. They run along side the runners grabbing at there arms and punching at the ball while the runners gets another 10 yards or more.
January 10th, 2022 at 5:17 pm
“Weak 3-and-outs should not be tolerated, much less a sack on the first play.”
You’re missing the big picture here–they didn’t run up the middle on first down!
January 10th, 2022 at 5:20 pm
Fast Slow Who Vares if we WIN!
January 10th, 2022 at 5:29 pm
Bobby M. this is one offense buddy. Its all the same freaking offense. When it works and we score Byron gets just as much credit for when we go 3 and out……Same for Brady.
We arent running different offenses based on good or bad and your need to blame a singular person………Your example of 2 Minute offense makes no sense. Do honestly think Byron hasent been working on that all year? When the team comes out prepared and runs a great 2 minute offense Byron gets credit………so does QB, blocking and recieving.
Theres no counter forces working against each other within the Bucs offense bro. Put down the fiction.
January 10th, 2022 at 6:07 pm
To summarize, all these 50+ coaches suck. They must if they can’t prepare a team for even the most inferrior teams. Preparation is on the coaches. BA’s philosophy is they are pros, they know what to do. BA says, enough starting off slow, how about you stop talking and coach these guys up? As far as the other two clowns they’re preoccupied. Tomorrow all of you who have direct reports (SB, that means bosses) tell them you’re taking tomorrow off to interview for another job. Please post on this site what their response is.
January 10th, 2022 at 6:21 pm
Bruce Arians … “We defer and we are giving up points. We’ve got to get that fixed.”
Hmmm, MAYBE a solution is stop deferring. Let our offense start the game & surely they’ll score on that 1st possession. I mean, after all, we are the #1 scoring offense.
As it turns out, Bucs have had the ball first in 11 of our 17 games (65%). In those 11 drives, the Bucs’ offense scored 4 TDs & punted 7 times. In the other 6 games where the opposing team got the ball first, Bucs scored 3 TDs on our 1st possession. So on the season we scored 7 TDs the first time we had the ball (no turnovers BTW). Means that we scored on 41% of our 1st possessions. That’s quite good.
Interestingly in our 4 losses, Bucs punted on every one of our 1st possessions (and we had the ball first in 3 of those 4 games).
January 11th, 2022 at 5:24 am
The Bucs defensive secondary had the same porous problem last year until something changed in the Super Bowl game against the Chiefs. Tony Romo was praising Todd Bowles but for my money, Bowles hasn’t made the right adjustments to correct a 2 year problem of wide open receivers. You can’t blame it all on injuries.