Costly Mistake By Antoine Winfield Jr.
November 5th, 2024
Called out.
Joe can’t ever remember Todd Bowles publicly pointing a finger at a defensive player during a halftime interview of a prime time game. But that happened tonight.
Fans saw it on ESPN.
Patrick Mahomes launched a second-quarter bomb to DeAndre Hopkins and All-Pro Bucs safety Antoine Winfield Jr was tracking the ball and saw it coming. Rather than make an aggressive play on the ball, or any play at all, Winfield backed up away from the incoming throw and appeared to wait for it to fall into his hands. Instead, Hopkins stepped in front of him and made the big catch at the 3 yard line.
Three plays later, the Chiefs scored their first touchdown.
Joe was in disbelief. The replay was uglier than the live look.
In his 30-second halftime sideline interview, Bowles called out Winfield for not making a play on the ball (Joe misplaced the exact quote).
The video is below for all Bucs fans to see. Joe can’t believe Winfield played it like he did.
One could find legions of second-rate college guys hungry to attack any football coming into their zip code.
Painful stuff on a painful night.
HOLY HOPKINS. WHAT A CATCH 🤯 pic.twitter.com/YDLYmbbTkx
— Kansas City Chiefs (@Chiefs) November 5, 2024
November 5th, 2024 at 1:37 am
Yeah, that and the two drops on the chiefs final drive in the 4th after we tied the game. He comes up with one of them and we are on the fringe of field goal territory. Wasn’t his best game, hopefully he turns it around next week
November 5th, 2024 at 3:32 am
Winfield also whiffed on that 80 yard run by King Henry in that beat down by the Ravens in the last MNF debacle. He is definitely playing like someone who has not brung his A game since he got paid.
Three truths I have learned by these agonizing losses this season: 1) Todd Bowles coaches not to lose and thus he loses these types of games such as the 2 ATL losses and this one. Dude goes turtle. The Glazers wanted to see pprogress at 4-6 after he loses to the Niners, I do not know what else they need to see. 2) This defense is bad, while it held the Chiefs to 24 points in regulation, it still found a way to lose and as is evidenced by Winfield tonight, one cannot just hang the issue on young CBs and KJ Britt 3) The Creamsicles are a curse, retire them yesterday.
November 5th, 2024 at 4:35 am
You just don’t pay a safety that kind of money. If you put Winfield on the trade market today no team would bite with that kind of salary. That’s the kind of money you pay an edge rusher. Think of how many good players you can get with that kind of money. Licht so proud of himself bringing everyone back at premium cost, when’s the boat parade Jason?
November 5th, 2024 at 4:51 am
i could not believe what i saw when winfield was kinda patiently waiting for an interception to hit him in the numbers…
only to be snatched out of the air before his very eyes…
and the receiver didn’t really even have to go up an get it…just had to get in front of the patient AWJ…
very un-winfield like play…
he must have wanted that int real bad on nat tv and was guiding it into his chest…
never saw him play like that before…
even he won’t be happy to see that on film
November 5th, 2024 at 5:57 am
@Hodad…you can say that about most of the players that got “paid” in the offseason who right now are taking the king’s ransom of our salary cap. I’ve learned a lot since the Brady era of how this cap works, big contracts, going-all in by mortgaging the future, having to hit on a draft in a 3-year window etc etc. ALL of this working toward a championship run. It’s beyond complicated, and it truly shows if your GM is worth his salt. Wirfs and Winfield, 2 of the highest paid in their positions and yet they’re not playing lights out football. Evans, gimpy most of the season and now he’s out. Baker is putting up the numbers, and at $30M is solid for a starting QB, but you can’t help but remember the must-win game against Atlanta where he was just sloppy throwing the ball, i.e. his penchant for being inconsistent.
Here’s the truth, 2025 is our year, it’s when the stars will align with rookie contracts, expiring veteran contracts, players getting seasoned in year 2, Oline becoming the strength of this team… and if we can land Godwin reasonably, might be the last season where we see Evans and Godwin playing at a high level together. Problem? Fire Bowles and promoting Coen will throw a wrench into all of it. I like Coen, A LOT…but much like many very talented coordinators, not all of them are ready to be head coaches after 1 year of NFL play calling and for that matter, he might never end up being a good head coach. Additionally, these players are suited for Bowles type of defense, not sure you can just drop a coordinator in here and expect them to perform better than what they are doing now. As JBF as noted and I’ve noted before the season, the primary problem on defense we need a 4-man front to consistently be able to apply pressure, and we can’t do it. That’s why Bowles has to get creative and it’s killing this team when that creativity can’t disrupt the QB.
We won’t promote a defensive coordinator from within and those thinking we can land Brian Flores from Minnesota as a coordinator in a parallel move here in Tampa, you’re delusional, no solid defensive coordinator will be making a parallel move here to Tampa. The most likely turn is Flores becomes head coach, and Coen gets a nice contract to run the offense.
November 5th, 2024 at 6:19 am
Winfield I believe is playing on a bad wheel, not an excuse, but I am pretty sure that impacts his explosiveness
November 5th, 2024 at 7:49 am
He’s been terrible since the big contract. Him and Whitehead are out of position constantly.
November 5th, 2024 at 8:48 am
That pic makes him look like he’s wearing wrestling headgear.
November 5th, 2024 at 9:23 am
He gets paid the big $$ and now he sucks! SMH!!
November 5th, 2024 at 9:35 am
It just seems there are mental breakdowns by different key players all through the games they play. Something like this, guys being out of position and miss tackles all through the game makes this a train wreck on every defense series.
November 5th, 2024 at 9:36 am
But we paying him top safety money smh we gotta do better
November 5th, 2024 at 10:00 am
Somehow, he did not realize the receiver was in position to make the catch.
In general, you can see that Bowles’ incompetence is beginning to demoralize the defense.
Since it is Election Day why not run the Bowels poll today? I am forecasting 50% or more NO CONFIDENCE!
November 5th, 2024 at 10:17 am
I was laughed and scorned when I said Winfield would regress after signing him to a large contract. I also said we will see a better Mayfield in 2024, again I was scorned with middling comments. Wirfs seems to coming around now so I may be wrong on that one.
Easy call, Wirfs and Winfield were at the top of the heap in 2023 so the chances of regressing was pretty easy to call. Wirfs is now holding his own. Winfield not so much.
November 5th, 2024 at 10:48 am
Perhaps it was communication issues, right Todd?
November 5th, 2024 at 11:25 am
Maybe Winfield Jr. is still hurt from the Week 1 injury. He’s been bad pretty much all year.
November 5th, 2024 at 11:34 am
The shocking hate for Winfield in these comments are amazing.
Personally, glad we have Winfield on the team. The best playmaker on the Bucs defense.
November 5th, 2024 at 12:08 pm
He went behind the WR instead of in front… inexcusable.
He’s had some splash plays but isn’t making the type of impact the highest paid safety in the league should be making. Just disappointing. Him and Wgitehead appear to be making business decisions every week, rather than giving it their all.
This defense is just a mess.
November 5th, 2024 at 3:23 pm
You got three guys in coverage and he’s the only one that went for the ball – I really don’t know why people are saying he’s the bad guy here.
November 5th, 2024 at 5:07 pm
Rod, same here. It happened really fast and I thought Winfield had the pick.
November 5th, 2024 at 5:24 pm
Rod Munch Says:
November 5th, 2024 at 3:23 pm
You got three guys in coverage and he’s the only one that went for the ball – I really don’t know why people are saying he’s the bad guy here.
….
So all damn 3 of them are incompetent to break up a play from a has been. SAD
November 5th, 2024 at 8:02 pm
Wow u people r rough at best what hatred how the hell r u fans u cc clearly r not if I wanted to read hate I wud call my x wife