Todd Bowles And Frankie Luvu
January 9th, 2025
Joe painfullly confesses to being a Frankie Luvu admirer.
The Commanders linebacker, who the Bucs will see plenty of on Sunday night, plays so darn hard and has a such a unique story.
Unfortunately, Luvu had a bunch of strong games against the Bucs with the Panthers before landing in Washington on a massive free agent contract in March.
Luvu’s strip of Bucs receiver Trey Palmer in the season finale last year nearly gave Joe a heart attack (Bucs won 9-0 on the road). And in a critical Bucs-Panthers game in Week 17 of the 2022 season, Luvu sacked Tom Brady and found his way to 13 combined tackles and three tackles for loss. The guy was all over the field.
Joe expects the same for Luvu on Sunday. For the Commanders’ defense, he’s Mr. Everything.
Luvu has 8 sacks and a team-leading 14 quarterback hits. He blitzes a lot and lines up in various positions, and he covers well.
Joe has thrown darts at Todd Bowles’ history of not developing an edge rusher. So it’s sort of ironic that Luvu was a 2018 undrafted rookie with the Jets when Bowles was head coach.
Luvu was a surprise darling of Jets camp and made the team as an edge rusher out of Washington State. He had a good rookie year but then Bowles was fired after the season.
Joe watched Luvu in a video interview at Commanders training camp this season and he said he had a lot of fun playing for Bowles and then lost his love of football quickly in his two Jets seasons without Bowles.
Eventually, Luvu moved to inside linebacker and found his calling as a dynamic player with the Panthers. He appears even more versatile this year playing alongside future Hall of Fame linebacker and Commanders leading tackler Bobby Wagner.
Yeah, Joe is concerned about Luvu causing trouble for the Bucs offense and his old coach.
January 9th, 2025 at 10:30 pm
You see?
Players love playing for Bowles!
Please post the list of all the idiots who tried to run Bowles out of town.
So their football related opinions are never considered again.
Like when Mel Kiper said Cam Newton would be a bust! Hahahaha!
January 9th, 2025 at 10:42 pm
Sounds like we will be hearing his name early and often. Hopefully Bowles is able to be proactive and warn the offense as it sounds like he is a playmaker.
January 9th, 2025 at 10:46 pm
Bowles is a great dude by all accounts but just not a good coach overall. Makes too many in game mistakes and I get his defense has no depth and banged up but man it’s tough to watch. I fear Daniel’s will have a field day on Sunday plus to boot our awful record on prime time. Daniel’s loves the spotlight!
January 10th, 2025 at 12:10 am
He is hurt did no practice
January 10th, 2025 at 12:12 am
I think it’s kind of strange that with him and Bobby Wagner at LB, and the strong interior of Washington’s D line, that they were #30 defending the run this year.
Whatever the reason, let’s hope Bucky takes advantage.
January 10th, 2025 at 12:27 am
Big Joe – players loved playing for Raheem Morris in 2011. That team lost 10 in a row. Your point that players love playing for Todd is accurate, but that no more makes him a good head coach than the substitute teacher who let you eat snacks and talk with your buddies all day instead of doing schoolwork was a good academian. (Means teacher)
January 10th, 2025 at 6:01 am
I would give Todd a good rating. Not in love with some of his decisions, but he has shown growth with some recent decisions. But hey I have seen Bill Belichek
punt on third down in his days with Bernie Cosar and Cleveland. Also have seen
him go for a fourth and long near his own goalline that was an epic failure. Point is we all learn from our mistakes and got his team in the playoffs with some obvious holes in the roster. And to make a Jethro Tull reference,Rectal Exam not required at this time.
January 10th, 2025 at 9:27 am
Big Joe:
Hi Big Joe I am right here…
Anyways I dont think anyone is saying that Bowles isnt a good dude BUT what I will say is that his defenses absolutely stink and at times they are historically bad. The problem with all that is that is supposed to be Bowles strong suite. We win games despite his horrific defenses and most of us think we have a talented enough roster to be at least an 11-12-win team. We lost games that we shouldn’t have this year primarily due to bad defense. Now you can highlight injuries and make other excuses fine but this has been a theme for a while now the defense seems to continue to regress. He has had whatever FA or draft pick he needs and we still cant get it together.
Coen on the other hand loses Godwin & Evans both and its like nothing ever happened we just keep chugging along. Now I don’t know if Coen will be a great HC or not but he has proven adaptable and that he can get our offense to be one of the best in our history.
January 10th, 2025 at 9:30 am
The Bucs have won ‘in spite of Bowles’. The offense is what has saved the season. Just look at the 2 Falcons & Ravens games. Then there is the Cowboys game.