Restoring The Core Defense
January 12th, 2023
A guy who had a sitdown with Bucs coaches last week was dealing insight on what will happen Monday night against Dallas.
Joe is referring to three-time Super Bowl-winning offensive lineman Mark Schlereth. He was on the other end of befuddling stats-twisting by failing Bucs offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich prior to Sunday’s Bucs-Falcons clash.
Schlereth called the game for FOX and was in a production meeting with Leftwich, who shared that the Bucs’ running game woes aren’t so glaring because they weren’t such a great rushing team with Bucco Bruce Arians. Never mind the the Bucs strive for efficiency in their run game and are ranked last in the NFL in yards per carry after ranking 15th last season.
Schlereth reiterated his Leftwich conversation yesterday on FS1. But he went on to explain that the overall woes of the Bucs offense led to Todd Bowles changing his defense and getting away from the blitz.
Joe documented that hidden story of the season a few weeks ago.
The core of Schlereth’s take was that Bowles cut blitzing because he no longer had an offense capable of making up for a high-risk defense. However, now that the Bucs offense has had a revival — health and production — look for Tampa Bay to get back to its blitz-happy ways against Dallas, which could be the key to a Bucs victory.(Remember, Schlereth just sat down with Bowles last week.)
Pass protection is not a great Cowboys strength.
Joe doesn’t know how Bowles will proceed Monday night, but it would be a hell of a look if the Bucs get back to “no-risk-it; no-biscuit” on both sides of the ball.
Ira Kaufman Talks Lenny Vs. Rachaad, Explores The Longterm Effects Of Monday’s Result, Offensive Strategy, Byron Leftwich Spin, NFC Outlook, Scheming The Run, And Much More
January 12th, 2023 at 2:26 pm
Complementary football. Got it!
January 12th, 2023 at 2:43 pm
Tom Brady finished the regular season with -1 total rushing yards 😂 😂
TEAM no risk it no biscuit!
January 12th, 2023 at 2:45 pm
Ya, or he’ll gameplan it as if it were the Steelers, Browns, or Panthers1. That’s what I’m expecting. No way this moron intentionally plays to his offense’s strength. He wants to prove he’s smarter than everyone and will stubbornly cling to the run to nowhere offense unless or until Brady just obliterates the speaker in his helmet and goes rogue.
Go rogue, Tom, you know it’s the Bucs only hope.
January 12th, 2023 at 2:47 pm
Hell yes! Let’s go out with both guns blazing
January 12th, 2023 at 2:53 pm
Bologna. A staple of Arians offense was a run play called 22/23 double. It worked to great success, especially in the playoff game against the eagles. It allowed Lenny to get second level, almost every time it was called. BA understood the need for an effective run game. It’s like BL is living in an alternate universe. Yes, BA loved to throw and throw deep, but to suggest the Bucs couldn’t or didn’t run when they needed to, is just not true.
January 12th, 2023 at 3:06 pm
Redeemer — spot on. And run game coordinator Harold Goodwin said a while ago “it’s installed, Byemoron just never calls it. ”
He called him something else but that was his point.
January 12th, 2023 at 3:07 pm
We haven’t been a great rushing team since Lovie Smith and Doug Martin were here, and the
@Redeemer its “duo” not “double” and it’s a nod to our blocking scheme It’s literally the first thing BA said he looked forward to installing after getting hired back in 2019. Koetter used the “power w/o a puller” blocking scheme in the same exact fashion and used to flash the run on first early in the game the same way BA & Leftwich have, biggest difference? No Marpet, No Cappa, No Jensen, and Gronks’ ability as an in-line blocker is sorely missed. That’s 4 major pieces to our OL that have not been in-play for us all of 2022 and that’s a major reason why our run game is ineffective. We’ve been bottom third in the league running the ball since 2015-16
January 12th, 2023 at 3:13 pm
The core defense includes Suh, Barrett, and Whitehead.
I hope we gel together and beat Dallas
January 12th, 2023 at 3:16 pm
What is the revival? Are people smoking rocks? We played one strong game and had one drive in the next.
January 12th, 2023 at 3:30 pm
We should beat Dallas but mark my word Bowles will make a stupid.call and lose the game. Then we will have the same sorry coaching staff next year.
January 12th, 2023 at 3:48 pm
The new podcast hasn’t uploaded on apple podcasts yet Joe.
January 12th, 2023 at 3:48 pm
I don’t think they fixed anything on offense which means nothing is going to change. They played the Panthers and the falcons it is an incredible reach to say anything is fixed based off of those two games.
January 12th, 2023 at 3:51 pm
OK……I’ve made up my mind…..the Bucs are going to win Monday…..and, yes….bring the pressure. Wasn’t it Devin White who caused Dak’s finger injury…..send Devin after Dak early & often.
January 12th, 2023 at 3:58 pm
Hey Joe, what’s are preferred matchups and or path to winning the Super Bowl?
How EXCITING would a Jags vs Bucs Super Bowl be?
January 12th, 2023 at 4:19 pm
Dooley, with the exception of the last superbowl year. Jones was just shy of 1000yds and then there was “playoff lenny”!
January 12th, 2023 at 4:24 pm
TBBucsfan – it was Barrett who caused the Dak finger injury. Devin is a good blitzer though to your point.
January 12th, 2023 at 4:34 pm
Always remember. POINTS WIN CHAMPIONSHIPS!
January 12th, 2023 at 5:13 pm
Somebody needs to enlighten Bloweswich — if the other team scores “x”, then your team needs to score “x+1” points with zeros left on the game clock to win.
And “x” doesn’t need to mean 16 or 17. It’s not a felony in Florida to score 30 points is it? Maybe it is. Maybe there’s the hidden problem.
January 12th, 2023 at 5:32 pm
It is true that Dak Prescott does not do well when he is pressured, so I hope Bowles really brings it Monday night.
January 12th, 2023 at 5:33 pm
It is true that Dak Prescott does not do well when he is pressured, so I hope Bowles really brings it Monday night.
I wish we had Shaq Barrett for this game, but our other players will just have to take up the slack
January 12th, 2023 at 6:58 pm
Lol no one does well with pressure on them
January 12th, 2023 at 7:47 pm
So yeah, that makes total sense, your offense isn’t doing its job, so now you go to a passive defense that doesn’t do its job either – and you wonder why you ended the year with a losing record. Very smart.
January 12th, 2023 at 7:48 pm
Chris@Apple Roof Cleaning Tampa Says:
January 12th, 2023 at 5:32 pm
It is true that Dak Prescott does not do well when he is pressured, so I hope Bowles really brings it Monday night.
———-
That means Bowles will ‘trick’ the Cowboys by playing soft all night. They’ll never see it coming.
January 12th, 2023 at 7:54 pm
Bucs, KC or Cincy superbowl.
January 12th, 2023 at 7:58 pm
Have I been canceled? I may have hit a button and made my email invalid.
January 12th, 2023 at 8:03 pm
Schlereth also said during the game broadcast that Leftfoot was “ doing a fantastic job with this offense”
Sheesh.
January 12th, 2023 at 8:13 pm
Dak is easily manipulated, stack the box and drop back in coverage. Keep Dean on Lamb at all times.
Our front 4 will get home, especially if Nassib is a go. We don’t need to go blitz crazy, just enough to keep Dak guessing. It will be enough, I say we get 2 pics with one being a pic 6.
January 12th, 2023 at 9:01 pm
Redeemer … Has been happening to me quite often. Hit the Back button, copy your input, then re-input it in separate submissions paragraph by paragraph to see which one is ‘the guilty party’. Joe’s algorithms function a bit strange at times. I’ve actually had several that burped on the quote I was referencing (seems strange how it made it through the first time?).
January 12th, 2023 at 9:39 pm
Schlereth is jabbering nonsense. He doesn’t know the team. There has been no “revival”, the offense is not suddenly great again. But because it is the Cowboys—not a good team, a floundering team with a shaky QB, and a team that Bucs beat in week 1— Bowles and Left will go in thinking that they know exactly what to do already. The same things as last time.
But I would not be surprised if Bowles does go back to blitzing. Because he cannot resist, even if he doesn’t have the personnel to do it well.
January 13th, 2023 at 9:34 am
@Infomeplease
Your talking about player production. I’m talking about our overall run game and how it ranks in comparison to teams the run the ball with varying levels of success league-wide. Our run game has been ranked in the bottom third of the league since Koetter replaced Lovie Smith. Not an opinion, it’s a fact
January 13th, 2023 at 10:11 am
These corners need to stick to the receivers . Don’t give them a 10 yard cushion.